There's no doubt that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the biggest game of 2015. Just Cause 3 and its ridiculously huge map came close, but there's really no competing with the amount of content CD Projekt Red managed to cram onto a Blu-ray. Seriously, it's almost scary — and, with the game's first expansion launching back in October, the already-ludicrous list of activities got even longer.
Then again, all that content comes at a cost: it's nearly impossible for the development team to bug test and fix every possible outcome of a given situation in a world that immense. While The Witcher 3 was more stable than some predicted, it had its fair share of bugs — and Hearts of Stone didn't necessarily change much in that department.
As such, fans should be happy to know that patch 1.12 has launched on all three platforms — and, while it doesn't change the game in any major ways, it does do a good job fixing quite a few of those smaller bugs.
Truth be told, there are so many minor tweaks and fixes being added in with patch 1.12 that it's impossible to list them all here. Basically, if something needed tweaking, it got tweaked: everything from character animations to hardware profiles to collectibles to spell damage to item comparisons have been adjusted or fixed. For example, here's the list of the Hearts of Stone tweaks alone:
• Fixes issue whereby achievement titled 'Wild Rose Dethorned' could not be completed.
• Fixes interaction on pickaxe in quest titled 'Enchanting: Quality Has Its Price.'
• Fixes issue (in majority of contexts) whereby not all diagrams could be collected in quest titled 'From Ofier's Distant Shores.'
• Fixes rare issue whereby some players were prevented from spreading smoke throughout all rooms in crypt during quest titled 'Dead Man's Party.'
• Fixes issue whereby book merchant named Marcus T.K. Hodgson failed to appear in market square in Novigrad.
• Fixes rare issue whereby some Knights of the Flaming Rose in quest titled 'Open Sesame!' in Hearts of Stone expansion could not be killed.
• Introduces a number of improvements to general game performance.
• Fixes issue whereby treasure hunt titled 'The Drakenborg Redemption' remained in Journal despite completion of all objectives.
• Fixes issue whereby swapping of enchanted gear within Inventory granted permanent bonuses to statistics.
• Fixes issue whereby treasure hunt titled 'The Royal Air Force' remained in Journal despite completion of all objectives.
• Fixes issue whereby players could not eavesdrop on guards during quest titled 'Witcher Seasonings' in Hearts of Stone expansion.
• Fixes issue whereby some players could not talk to Shani at certain juncture of quest titled 'Dead Man's Party' in Hearts of Stone expansion.
• Introduces a series of minor difficulty balance tweaks at all difficulty levels in Hearts of Stone expansion.
• Fixes rare issue whereby inebriation effect would persist on screen after quest titled 'Dead Man's Party' in Hearts of Stone expansion.
• Fixes issue whereby phase titled 'Enchanting: Start-up Costs' would remain in Journal after Enchanter was paid relevant amount.
• Fixes incorrect Stamina bonus granted for Caparison of Lament in New Game + mode.
• Fixes incorrect mesh appearing on Viper School swords in New Game + mode.
Needless to say, the list of fixes is rather extensive.
With an update this big, it's easy to assume that CD Projekt Red is getting the game ready for its second expansion, Blood and Wine. The studio has yet to confirm the expansion's release date, though Blood and Wine is rumored to hit sometime in early 2016. With this many minor updates incoming, CD Projekt Red could be getting ready to make an announcement.
... or there were just a million little tweaks that had to be made — either way, Witcher 3 fans win!
You can read the full list of updates coming with patch 1.12 over at CD Projekt Red's official site.
