The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is one of the greatest video games ever made. When it launched, the game received universal acclaim and sold over 40 million copies since 2015. But, it looks like its re-release on next-gen consoles is even better, eclipsing the marks reached by the GOTY contender, God of War: Ragnarok.

CD Projekt Red decided to update the game for the newer generation of consoles and it has a significant list of improvements over the previous version. The updated version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt received a score of 96 on Metacritic for the PS5. By comparison, the original scored only a 92 when it came out on the PS4.

The PS5 version of The Witcher 3 passed Santa Monica Studios’ God of War: Ragnarok on its way to second place. God of War: Ragnarok currently has a score of 94 on the review site.

However, it may not be an apples-to-apples comparison as the God of War sequel is a new release while The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt already has a huge following. God of War: Ragnarok also has 141 critic reviews as compared to The Witcher 3’s 24 reviews for the PlayStation 5 as of the time of writing.

Interestingly, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt equals Elden Ring’s Metacritic score of 96 for the critic reviews. The next-gen version of The Witcher 3 falls short on the user score as it only gets a 7.5 compared to Elden Ring’s 7.7.

However, it is worth noting that Elden Ring was review-bombed by users just two weeks after it was released. Gamers were complaining that the game was a "buggy mess" while others felt that it lacked replayability.

Elden Ring will end up as the highest-rated game for 2022 o the PS5. It has already won several major awards and has been recognized as the best game for the year by several gaming websites. As for The Witcher 3, it won't be a part of any award nominations as the game is already seven years old.

It is however rare to see a next-gen port score higher than the original version. CD Projekt Red did an outstanding job ironing out the glitches and improving the overall performance of the game. Not only did the studio fix the issues but also made the gameplay a lot better.

The next-gen version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt supports 60 FPS and ray tracing on the PS5 and Xbox Series X. The game also has different camera options, gives players the ability to quickly cast Signs and other quality-of-life improvements. The PC version now supports Ultra+ settings.

Most likely, the positive reception of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has plenty to do with the fact that it's free. In comparison, a similar re-release or remake, The Last of Us Part 1, didn't get as much critical acclaim earlier this year, partly because many believed it wasn't worth the full price of a new game.