The patch lands today for most regions, with CD Projekt Red noting that Japan gets it once certification clears. Ver 5.01 is a broad cleanup rather than a headline feature drop — gameplay tweaks, UI quirks squashed, the usual post-launch housekeeping for a game that has been re-polished more times than most of us have replayed it.
The Switch 2 section of the notes is where the interesting stuff sits. CD Projekt Red says the update improves "visual clarity and fidelity" on the console and patches a set of bugs that were present at launch. That's the phrasing of a studio that knows exactly which complaints were filling up its inbox — the remaster's Switch 2 build arrived with rough edges, and this is the pass that smooths them out.
Nothing here rewrites the game. No new quests, no combat overhaul, no surprise romance option for Roach. It's a stability-and-clarity update, which for a remaster is arguably the most useful kind: the version you install should be the version that looks and runs the way the marketing promised.
Worth keeping expectations calibrated. Patch notes for a game this size tend to undersell themselves — studios list "minor fixes" and bury the actual changes — so if you notice a location that suddenly looks sharper or a menu that stops misbehaving, that's 5.01 doing its job. Japan's rollout timing is the only open question, and that's down to certification, not development.
If you bounced off the Switch 2 version at launch over performance or image quality, this is the excuse to reinstall. If you're already deep in a Velen playthrough, you'll simply have a slightly cleaner view of the swamps.