The Witcher 3 Won’t Leave Your SSD? Here’s the Only Guide You Need to Delete It for Good

Why Geralt Keeps Coming Back

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a 50 GB beast on paper, but after my last “uninstall” I still had 28 GB of DLC packs, REDengine cache, and GOG/Steam overlay hooks scattered across three different folders. CD Projekt Red’s launcher, cloud saves, and mod-friendly file structure all conspire to leave behind:

• DLC and Mods folders outside the main install path
• shader & crash dumps in %LOCALAPPDATA%
• registry entries that re-spawn the game’s tile on every launcher refresh

Below is the exact checklist I used on a Windows 11 rig to claw back every last gigabyte.

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Step-by-Step: How I Actually Purged It

1. Back Up Your Saves
   Copy %USERPROFILE%\Documents\The Witcher 3 and %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\CD Projekt Red\The Witcher 3 to cloud storage or an external drive.
2. Kill Background Processes
   Task Manager → end witcher3.exe, GOG Galaxy.exe or steam.exe, plus any lingering REDprelauncher.exe.
3. Native Uninstall

• Steam: Library → right-click The Witcher 3 → Manage → Uninstall.
• GOG Galaxy: Installed → The Witcher 3 → More → Manage Installation → Uninstall.
• Epic/Game Pass: Library → … → Uninstall.
  Wait for the progress bar—this removes the base 35–50 GB payload.

1. Manual Deep Clean
   Delete these folders if they still exist:

• C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Witcher 3
• %LOCALAPPDATA%\CD Projekt Red\The Witcher 3 (shader cache, crash logs)
• %PROGRAMDATA%\CD Projekt Red\The Witcher 3 (DLC metadata)
• %USERPROFILE%\Documents\The Witcher 3 (INI & screenshots) Registry keys:
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\CD Projekt Red\The Witcher 3
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\CD Projekt Red\The Witcher 3 After this I dropped from 28 GB to 1.3 GB—mostly orphaned registry values and a stubborn GOG overlay DLL.

1. Perfect Uninstaller – Final Sweep
2. Download Perfect Uninstaller (portable).
3. Scan → highlight The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt → choose Force Uninstall + Deep Registry Scan.
4. It found 1,142 registry remnants, two overlay DLLs, and a hidden DLC cache file.
5. Click Delete, reboot—0 bytes left, no launcher ghosts.

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Summary

The Witcher 3’s DLC, mod, and cloud-save structure means a basic uninstall only scratches the surface. Nuke the leftover folders and registry keys manually, then let Perfect Uninstaller finish the job. Follow the checklist above and you’ll reclaim every gigabyte—no reappearing tiles, no broken launchers, just a clean drive ready for your next adventure.