Get a free copy of The Witcher 3 on GOG if you own it elsewhere

If you haven’t finally cracked into The Witcher 3 after three months of lockdown, perhaps you never will. Still, this latest offer from GOG might make you rethink, as from now until June 23rd, they're giving away free GOG copies of the game to anybody who’s bought it on other platforms, such as Steam, Epic Games Store and Origin – even PS4 and Xbox One copies are eligible. Best of all, your save file and achievements will transfer over, too.

The process is simple enough. Just load up the GOG Galaxy 2.0 client (if you’re still labouring away on 1.6 as I was, you’ll need an update) and then link the account where your current version of The Witcher 3 lives. Once the account is linked, find it in your games library and press the 'claim' button. Both disc and digital copies are eligible, so there’s nothing stopping you borrowing a PS4 or Xbox One copy – except honesty and that whole worldwide pandemic thing, of course. You have until June 23rd to connect accounts.

I should note that you'll only get a free version of the edition you already own - so that means no cheeky upgrades to the season-pass including Game Of The Year edition if you've only got the regular edition of the game. If you do own the GOTY edition on another platform, though, then you'll get the GOTY edition on GOG as well.

There’s only one exception: the Nintendo Switch (aka: The Switcher) edition. That’s annoying, since The Switcher already has a cross-save function with the PC version on Steam and GOG, but apparently "there is no Nintendo Switch integration" on GOG.com, so Switcher players won't be able to receive a free copy of the game on PC. Booo.

For everyone else, though, it's a rather neat package. GOG says that your in-game progress on other platforms – achievements and save state – will be transferred over, and you’ll also get extra digital freebies including an extended soundtrack with four bonus tracks, official paper toys and digital comic book The Witcher: House of Glass (as if the game itself wasn’t long enough).

Actually, there’s one other thing that might stop you if you have a PS4 copy like me. There’s a well known bug that stops you connecting your PlayStation account to GOG that’s been an issue since GOG 2.0 was born. Luckily, if you do happen to run into an error that says “The connection to the server times out”, there’s a solution on the GOG forums which worked for me, though it’s pretty long winded. Guess you’ll have to decide how much you want a PC copy if you’re coming from PlayStation Land.