CD Projekt REDThe Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is already one of the best-looking games I’ve had the pleasure of laying my eyes on. From the rocky, rain soaked peaks of Skellige to the fairy tale beauty of Toussaint, CD Projekt RED’s masterpiece is a stone cold stunner.
You could be forgiven for assuming that a game so attractive couldn’t possibly get any better looking, but that hasn’t stopped one dedicated fan from spending four years working to give The Witcher 3 a fresh coast of paint that, somewhat incredibly, noticeably improves pretty much every aspect of the RPG.
CD Projekt REDThe Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project is the work of modder HalkHoganPL. You might have come across it before, but a few nights ago it received a substantial new update that provides a staggeringly impressive graphical overhaul for an already staggeringly impressive looking game.
According to HalkHoganPL himself, the aim of the mod is “to improve the graphics by reworking models and textures,” while staying true to the game’s original artstyle, and leaving overall performance intact. The mod first appeared in November 2015, but update 10.0 is the big one.
The new update has reworked no less than 1,000 new textures, and improved on 250 character models. You can check out the video below to see just how noticeable the difference is for yourself.
Not content with the amazing work he’s already done, HalkHoganPL has said that more updates are coming soon, including a complete rework of the Toussaint region, which appears in The Witcher 3’s excellent Blood & Wine expansion.
If you fancy downloading the mod for yourself, just head over to Nexusmods and follow the installation instructions. Despite the improved visuals, performance should be mostly be fine depending on your settings, where you are in the game, and what graphics card you have. Halk says if you have a GTX 970 or greater, you probably won’t see any issues at all.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.