Xbox users revolt as AAA game pulled from libraries, but not on PS5 and Steam

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered was met with rapturous applause upon its unveiling at Gamescom’s Opening Night Live.

Its rollout, however, has been far from smooth.

There’s a lot to like about CD Projekt RED’s latest revision of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, particularly if you’re playing on Nintendo Switch 2, which is where you’ll experience the most noticeable visual upgrade.

On other platforms though, players can’t seem to decide whether they prefer the original or the remaster, with many arguing that the original boasted better visuals and effects.

Xbox users in particular have now surfaced with a new problem. If you don’t like the remaster, there appears to be no trace of prior versions of the game in most Xbox users’ libraries.

“Thank you for the free remaster of The Witcher 3, but why did you get rid of the two versions I owned?” Reddit user yeskezspanem wrote, likely referring to the original version and new-gen upgrade.

Plenty of Xbox users shared in the OP’s annoyance that CD Projekt RED had seemingly overwritten prior versions on the console.

“Hopefully from the backlash they make the complete edition available again. It just makes sense anyway,” replied BKRandy9587.

“I wish there was a way to toggle between the different versions,” yayap01 said.

This is possible on Steam and PlayStation. On Steam, you can navigate to the game versions section of a particular title’s settings, reverting back to an older build.

On PlayStation, the original The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is still listed on the PlayStation Store separate from the remaster, at the time of writing anyway.

If you own that version and can’t see it in your library, you should be able to find this version on the store and click download if, again, you already own it.

You may be able to secure the OG The Witcher 3 on Xbox with a disc

Xbox users, however, are struggling to access that original version. Few are reporting they still see it, but many are saying there’s no longer any trace of prior versions within their owned games.

Thankfully, there are a couple of ways you may be able to revert the remaster upgrade.

If you own a disc copy of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on Xbox, you can insert your disc and download the game offline; that way, it won’t download the free update. It’s certainly not ideal, but it works.

Alternatively, you may be able to make use of Xbox’s disc-to-digital programme.

Reddit user Captain_Jurassic said, “I had the original disc and used disc-to-digital, now in my game list I have the original and the remaster as separate entities. I haven’t tried installing it but maybe worth checking out.”

The older version may update when loaded. As Captain_Jurassic states, they’ve not fully tested it out yet.

Both of those techniques require a disc though, so hopefully CD Projekt RED makes both versions of the game more readily available to digital owners.

The vast majority of players probably are going to want to experience the remaster, but sometimes it’s nice to take a trip down memory lane and experience things as they were when you first fell in love with them.

It’s especially surprising to see this rewrite arrive in an age where game preservation is so heavily discussed.

CD Projekt RED usually gets it right and listens to the feedback of its players but for now, you may have to use a few workarounds on Xbox to access original versions of The Witcher 3 if you cannot see them in your library.