The Witcher 3 Next-Gen New Mod Improves Ray-Traced Ambient Occlusion

A new The Witcher 3 mod released online a few days back improves ray-traced ambient occlusion by fixing a known issue.

The Ray Bleach mod, which can be downloaded from Nexus Mods, is a modified configuration file that finally fixes the artifacts caused by ray-traced ambient occlusion, an issue that has been known to be in the Next-Gen edition of the game but hasn't been fixed. Unfortunately, this fix comes with a performance cost, so only to-end systems will be able to enjoy its benefits without a significant impact on performance.

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While CD Projekt Red seems to be done supporting The Witcher 3 Next-Gen edition, though an official mod editor is coming this year, modders continue to work on it to provide new features and enhancements. Well-known modder Halk Hogan continues working on their HD Reworked Project as other modders released ray-traced global illumination improvements and even implemented AMD FSR 3 frame generation support.

The Witcher 3 is now available on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. You can learn more about the Next-Gen edition (and its launch woes) by checking out Alessio's piece.

With everything turned on, the game looks absolutely fantastic. Granted, it had a great base to begin with, but the textures are clearly higher quality here (partly thanks to the integrated mods), and the draw distance is massively improved, just like the accuracy and sharpness of reflections and shadows. The star of the show is the ray-traced global illumination, though, which elevates the game's lighting to new heights.