How to Pet Roach in The Witcher 3 Next-Gen Version

The Witcher 3's next-gen update has been unleashed, tempting gamers on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5 back to the vast fantasy world. While there are some issues, such as severe performance dips on PC, there's also a plethora of impressive improvements to enjoy. One such improvement might be the best feature ever...Yes, you can now pet Roach.

This article explains how you can pet Roach, Geralt of Rivia's faithful horse, since it wasn't mentioned in the patch notes, and players might miss it, as there isn't any kind of prompt to start this interaction in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's next-gen update.

How To Pet Roach (Horse) in The Witcher 3

Ray Tracing? DLSS 3 support? 4K Textures? That doesn't make me want to play The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt to completion for the third time. What does, however, is the ability to finally start petting Roach, letting the faithful companion know it's a good steed! 

Before we even get to how you can pet Roach following The Witcher 3's next-gen update, let's first take a look at how the interaction looks in practice.

Yes, so many times, yes!

Take this article as a PSA since there is nothing mentioned about Geralt's newfound ability to pet his horse in the next-gen update (version 4.0) update notes. In fact, there isn't even an on-screen prompt to perform this long-awaited action.

So how do you start petting Roach in The Witcher 3? Well, it is actually quite simple. Walk towards Roach, then press and hold the Jump button as you approach the horse. When you reach your steed, Geralt will pet it.

Roach even lifts its leg as a show of appreciation at the end of the interaction, as showcased by Radek (CDPR's Global PR Director) on Twitter.

I am going to finish this guide by saying: Well done, CDPR! Thanks for finally making this happen.

My download of the next-gen update is done, so I'm going to go pet the horse over and over again right now.

So there you have it, a way to finally pet Roach in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt after installing the next-gen version (4.0) on your gaming PC or console.