Although The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an excellent game, no game is without its fair share of bugs. The Witcher 3’s next-gen release suffers from a false error of missing downloadable content. In a few instances, when you boot up the game, you will probably get the error message “Missing DLC while loading a save.”
The game fails to recognize the installed DLC files or load them properly. Whatever the main problem, you get the message that the DLCs, like the Nilfgaardian crossbow set, are missing, so your save file cannot be loaded since it contains content from the said DLCs.
This guide will help you fix the error for Missing Downloadable Content in The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt so you can enjoy the DLC you paid for.
Witcher 3 Missing DLC error fix
The missing DLC bug in TW3 is not game-breaking, but it can be highly annoying to see it when you load your game. Unfortunately, there is no permanent fix for this issue. There are only fixes that will temporarily resolve the problem, but you might re-encounter the issue later on.
You will have to use the fix once again to get around the error until CDPR releases a proper fix through an update.
PlayStation
First, let us look at how to fix the missing DLC error for PS players.
You need to ensure that both the DLCs are purchased and installed. Go to PS Store and search for the DLCs. Here, you can confirm if or not you have purchased the DLCs. Sometimes, even if purchased, the DLCs are not redeemed. Redeem the DLCs if that is the case.
Secondly, make sure you have installed the DLCs. Sometimes DLCs can get deleted, and this might be causing the issue for you. You can manually delete the DLCs from your storage and then reinstall them. This helps ensure that you might fix any possibly corrupt files.
For PS4, players need to make sure that the account on which they are playing the game is activated as the primary account on the PS4. To do this, go to the:
Settings<Account Management<Activate as your primary PS4< Activate.
Next, you must also make sure you have purchased the DLCs on your primary account. Although base games can be shared with secondary accounts, DLCs do not follow the same rules and cannot be shared with secondary accounts from primary accounts.
For PS5, you need to make the account with the DLCs purchased as your device’s primary account. You can do this by:
Settings<Users and Accounts<Others<Console Sharing & Offline Play<Enable
PC
To fix the missing DLC error for TW3 on your PC, you can take the following steps:
- Enter the Witcher 3 Folder whose default location is “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Witcher 3\DLC.”
- Inside look for “bob, ep1, DLC1-16” folders. Delete any other folder you see other than the three we mentioned.
- Now boot your device again and start the game.
If this doesn’t resolve the issue, you can go to your steam launcher and verify your files. To do so, you need to go to your game library in steam and click on Witcher 3. Here, you can see a gear icon on the right side of the screen. Click on it, and then select properties. From here on:
Properties>Local Files>Verify the integrity of game files
This allows the launcher to recheck all your game files and see if an unwanted or corrupt file is causing the issue. Verify your base game and DLCs to ensure all the files are up-to-date and in ok condition.
If this fails, try reinstalling The Witcher 3 and its DLCs. This allows you to renew the installation directory of your entire game completely. Deleting the game won’t remove your save files, so you can restart the game from where you left it even after a fresh install of TW3.
