Well here’s a cool-but-weird thing I didn’t expect to write up today: You can now transfer your progress in The Witcher 3 between the Steam/GOG version and last year’s Nintendo Switch port. Huh!
This unexpected functionality comes as part of Update 3.6 for the Switch version of Witcher 3, which also adds touch support(!) for the HUD, menus, and Gwent(!!), in addition to new language options for the game’s text — additional voice-over language options will be added in a future update, according to the patch notes. Update 3.6 also adds more options for tightening up the graphics on level 3, in addition to further performance optimizations.
Vitally, saves can be sent to or from any of the three supported platforms. (Unfortunately, folk who first ventured into Nilfgaard on the Xbox One or PlayStation 4 must stay where they are.) The Switch version now has a menu for “Cloud Saves” that will allow you to access your Steam or GOG-based Witcher 3 adventures from the comfort of your own bed, and an “Upload” option to send your newly gained Switch progress back into the cloud for future PC playtimes.
Meanwhile, the “postprocessing” options menu has grown by several orders of magnitude. What was previously the barren expanse between “blur” and “motion blur” settings is now a veritable cornucopia of toggles and sliders, including options for bloom, “sharpening,” depth of field, cutscene depth of field, “light shafts,” underwater effects, plant visibility range, and anti-aliasing. Fiddling with these options may help The Witcher 3 be a little easier to parse on the Switch’s low-resolution screen, but CD Projekt Red makes no claim that any of these toggles will improve the game’s performance.
CD Projekt Red cautions that PC users accessing their saves on Switch may encounter some issues under specific circumstances: “Mod-related bugs and blockers might get transferred from a modded PC game save file. If the save file name has been changed on PC, the Switch’s Cloud Save feature won’t be able to recognize it.” So! If you’ve ever installed aftermarket utilities such as “Debug Console Enabler,” “Auto Apply Oils,” or “MKM Yennefer beauty face and big Breast and Ass,” your save may encounter unforeseen issues when played on a Switch.
There’s a world out there, somewhere, in the vast and infinite matrix of bubbles that make up the multiverse, where cross-save compatibility isn’t news worth writing about. It’s the norm, rather than an exception, and in this glimmering utopia people are free to live and love how and where they want, be it on top of a stuffed unicorn on a PC, a stuffy brothel on a Nintendo Switch, or a picnic blanket on an Xbox One.
Regardless of the game, the gross bug monsters that inhabit this magical garden world are unhindered by the walls that Capitalism drives between us and our save games. These hideous demons frolic from gaming platform to gaming platform, taking with them not only their saves, but their disgusting friends lists as well. It is my sincere hope that we are someday invaded and devoured by these horrific terrors from beyond, these acrid husks, their exoskeletons overflowing with gore, so that we may know the kind of freedom that they know.
