This comes up often enough in The Witcher 3 that it deserves a straight answer rather than a thread to scroll through.

Short answer

Do the simple thing first. It is correct more often than the complicated thing people recommend instead.

Most of the disagreement online comes from people describing different versions of The Witcher 3. Nothing here depends on a setting you are unlikely to have. Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work.

When the usual advice fails

Testing this yourself takes a few minutes and settles it definitively. The accepted community answer is broadly right and wrong in a specific way that matters here. The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time. Edge cases are genuinely rare, which is why the simple answer is usually the correct one.

It is worth separating what the game does from what players have concluded it does. There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing. The mechanic behind it is simpler than the discussion around it suggests.

What to do instead

Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep. A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later. Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see.

  • Do not build a routine around an edge case.
  • Note the exception cases — they are specific rather than vague.
  • If a menu path does not exist for you, your build is older or newer than the one described.
  • Test it yourself where testing is cheap.
  • Revisit after a major patch if the behaviour changes.
  • Prefer the in-game option over an external tool when both exist.

Why it works this way

Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters. Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows. None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of. There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you.

Everything below is framed around the current state of The Witcher 3 rather than a launch-week impression. If your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts.

The practical answer

The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why. The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice. Where something depends on your platform or region, that is called out rather than glossed over.

Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration. The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first. If a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about.

Worth knowing alongside this

If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on. Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds. Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional.

Where people go wrong

  • Trusting a video thumbnail that promises a result the video never actually shows.
  • Copying a setup wholesale from a streamer without understanding what each part does.
  • Treating a rare edge case as the normal behaviour and planning around it.

Witcher 3 FAQ

How long does this take?

Minutes if it goes cleanly, an evening if you hit the edge case in the caveats list. Neither is unusual.

Does this change between platforms?

The behaviour does not. Where menu paths or prompts differ, that is noted above.

Do I need any mods or third-party tools for this?

No. Everything described here works with the base game on any supported platform.

What if none of this works for me?

Then something in your setup differs from the assumption — version, region or platform. Check those three before anything else.

Bookmark it if you like, but honestly, once you have done it once you will not need to come back.