Days after announcing a remastered version of The Witcher 3, CD Projekt Red has gone and silently bumped the price up of the Complete Edition on Steam.
A user on Resetera noticed the increase in the UK via SteamDB’s price tracker graph, and I can verify that it has also went up $10 in the US, bringing it to $49.99.
The Witcher 3 Complete Edition comes with all the DLC expansion packs released for the game and will be upgraded to the Remastered version for free next month, but it’s kind of a shady move to nudge the price after the news.
The price bump would be understandable given The Witcher 3 Remastered’s visual and gameplay improvements. Applying that to the old game that’s been around for years seemingly to capitalize on people picking it up for the first time, however, is a lame move by CD Projekt Red.
Over on GOG, the Complete Edition is actually 50% off. CD Projekt Red no longer owns the digital platform, but it would still be in charge of deciding where these prices get slashed. Even if the intent isn’t to milk Steam users specifically, the discrepancy is confusing at the very least.
The Witcher 3 is a great game that is about to get even better with the Remastered version. I’d probably recommend it in a world where it never dropped in price. But games are expensive no matter how you look at it, and CD Projekt Red has historically prided itself on caring about its players, so I hope to see this reverted before too long.