Earlier today French retailer E.leclerc was found to have multiple versions of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt available for purchase. Three of these versions were listed as “enhanced editions” available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Video game journalists rushed to the scene and stories covered the internet much to CD Projekt RED’s chagrin — or perhaps it was planted to get The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt back in the media’s eye?
Nevertheless, CD Projekt RED’s marketing executive Michal Nowakowski (Michal PG or @michalpg on Twitter) reached out to IGN’s official Twitter page to deny the rumors and kill the internet’s collective hype.
@IGN There’s no Enhanced Edition of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt that we are aware of, this is some kind of error that we will look into.
— Michal PG aka MPG (@michalpg) January 10, 2016
The French site had release dates for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt “enhanced edition” set as February 5th of this year.
If past enhanced edition releases of The Witcher and The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings were any type of guideline, the timing for an enhanced edition announcement of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt would be just about right.
- The Witcher released on the 26th of October, 2007.
- The Witcher Enhanced Edition released on the 16th of September, 2008.
- The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings released on the 17th of May, 2011.
- The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition released on the 17th of April, 2012.
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt released on the 19th of May, 2015.
On average, the enhanced edition of each Witcher game comes out eleven months after the original’s release.
If the pattern is to hold, an enhanced edition of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt should release this April.
Past enhanced editions have fine tuned the game, cut load times in half and added extra adventures to the main story. If there is a secret enhanced edition of CD Projekt RED’s newest game, it is unclear how it would be different from the original. In the current generation internet updates can patch the game, and DLC purchases can provide the extra content. Perhaps the enhanced edition of this game will serve as a “Game of the Year Edition” and provide players will immediate access to all DLC for a lesser price. Only time will tell.
Even though the existence of the game has been denied by the developer so far, there’s no definite answer on if we’ll be seeing an enhanced edition of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt this year or not.
