The Witcher 3’s next-gen update could be nicer, but you’ll pay the price with broken mods
Joyful! The days of searching for bodies in The Witcher 3’s Velen for juicy loot and yielding nothing but a bunch of candles, broken rakes, and a broken heart from your troubles are coming to an end. However, it seems that this benefit may come at a cost.
Released on December 14, The Witcher 3 Next Generation Update will incorporate six community-created mods to make life on the Continent easier. These will vary from reworked graphics to general quality-of-life changes, enhancing immersion in The Witcher’s dense fantasy world of political intrigue and monster-killing.
As well as community-created mods to improve the look and feel of monsters and make the minimap more like a 3D world, the update will also incorporate a remake of the original mod created. by a senior game designer of the base game and its. two expansions.
However, while it’s great to see CD Projekt RED acknowledging its passionate modding community by recognizing their work as official, the next-gen update itself will break many existing mods. available for the game.
A lot of questions about community mods come to W3NG, so here’s the list again: ️The Witcher 3 HD remake project by HalkHogan⚙️HD Monsters Remastered by Denroth⚙️Time cutscenes teiji25’s immersive realtime⚙️Nitpicker patch by chuckcash⚙️World map fixed by Terg500 https://t.co/fs1oN3u0zmDecember 7, 2022
Very necessary
end Twitter (opens in a new tab)CD Projekt RED global community director Marcin Momot shared the list of mods that are being included in The Witcher 3’s next-gen update.
- HalkHogan’s The Witcher 3 HD Remake
- Monster HD remade by Denroth
- teiji25’s real-time immersive cutscenes
- Nitpicker’s Patch with chuckcash
- Terg500 . World Map Fix
The mod that I am most excited about being integrated into The Witcher 3 is FCR3 . Gameplay and Role Refinement (opens in a new tab) mods. Created by Andrzej Kwiatkowski, one of the original game designers, he describes the mod in its listing by saying that it “is not aimed at any profound and intrusive changes; rather, it aims to maintain the original feel of the game, sometimes getting closer to the original intent behind the designs.” This means it focuses on “fixing soak breakers, enhancing underperforming skills and items, changing cosmetics, and fixing bugs.”
All of that sounds lovely, but the most intriguing part of the mod is an option pack that removes junk loot from the game. This will be especially helpful for us serial adventurers like me who find themselves forced to loot every item we can find and will reduce the number of pure junk items, there low value that Geralt occasionally finds. Look at you, rotten meat.
One of the other mods getting its place in the spotlight is The Witcher 3 HD remake project (opens in a new tab). Originally uploaded in 2015, this mod gives The Witcher 3 a facelift by enhancing the integrity and quality of textures, character models, terrain, creatures, and items. other. Expect a full visual overhaul to meet the demands of 4K gaming.
The Monster HD Remake (opens in a new tab) by Denroth perfectly complements the HD Remake Project by completely or partially remaking certain visual content for The Witcher 3’s monsters. That said, the creators insist that the goal is stick with the vanilla release and simply improve on what’s already there. Those vampires will look aghast; I cannot wait.
World map fix (opens in a new tab) Small but awesome mod and will make your 2D minimap mirror the topographical features of the world around you. At the same time, Nitpicker Patch – Various visual details (opens in a new tab) will fix smaller instances of visual mismatches when it comes to armor sets, water bodies, and DLC skins not being displayed correctly in the cutscenes.
Speaking of cutscenes, Real-time immersive cutscenes (opens in a new tab) mod will make pre-rendered cutscenes render in real time. This means better continuity in terms of character modeling, as well as general fixes for specific cutscenes.
The cloud behind the silver lining
With so many remakes and additions coming in the next-gen update, broken mods are a necessary (if unfortunate) accident.
“Updating the game means we change many different files, so mods that modify those exact files will stop working. If we want to change things in the game or add content, it is inevitable,” technical support director Karolina Niewęgłowska wrote in a forum post (opens in a new tab)explains that “studio teams have to focus on making the best possible updates [rather than] minimize change.”
Niewęgłowska also includes a test list of most popular mods (opens in a new tab) currently in use by the community, detailing which ones broke in the update and which we can still expect to work after the update drops on December 14th.
Niewęgłowska also said that once the update is released, the CDPR mod team will actively work with the modding community to offer advice and support as they fix their work. CDPR has thought about this in advance; Niewęgłowska writes that “along with the game update, we will be releasing a new version of the Witcher 3 command line tool for moderators (modkit (opens in a new tab)), adapted for the updated game with many bug fixes included.”
Modders will also be able to use the new version of the modding client Wolf Set TW3 (opens in a new tab)will be released “immediately after the release of the update (as well as when possible, considering their holiday season plans).”
Toss a coin for your modders
The Witcher 3 still ranks high on most lists of Best role playing game ever, and for good reason. The passionate modding community has been making bug fixes and improvements to the game for almost eight years now, and it’s great to see CD Projekt RED embrace these mods with open arms.
I have little hope that when Gwent: The Witcher Card Game empower the community in 2024 we should see a similar amount of enthusiasm to continue the game even though the developers have moved to the new pasture.