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One of the biggest Witcher 3 mods just got even bigger and better

One of the best Witcher 3 mods, The Witcher 3 HD Reworked, just got yet another next-gen update that makes the open-world game look better than ever

Josh Broadwell

CD Projekt Red

One of the best Witcher 3 mods, The Witcher 3 HD Reworked, just got yet another next-gen update that makes CD Projekt Red’s open-world game look better than ever. Mod creator HalkHogan posted the enhanced fixes on NexusMods and showed off some of its improvements in a series of images and a lengthy comparison video.

It’s called The Witcher 3 HD Reworked: Nextgen [sic] Edition and replaces HalkHogan’s previous effort, The Witcher 3 HD Reworked, that launched when CDPR’s official next-gen update for The Witcher 3 released.

“The long-awaited final version of the project appreciated by the amazing Witcher community and CD Project RED, which now raises the game's visuals to the highest level yet and enchance it to a truly next-gen masterpiece,” they said in the mod description.

At a glance, HD Reworked Nextgen seems like just a set of minor improvements – cleaner textures on wood, for example, or sharper details for filigree and other architectural embellishments. These little fixes do make the generally blurry world of The Witcher 3 more pleasant to look at, but the real draw for me is how lighting interacts with some of the improved textures. One of the comparisons features a statue, which has a flat stone-like texture in the base game and one with stains and wear in the modded version, with an added bonus of having the light catch on certain features and not others.

It looks like metal and food benefit the most from HalkHogan’s latest efforts, though. Gates and grates have a properly aged, rusty look about them, while sacks and baskets look like they contain grain and fruit now, and not JPEGs of food badly distorted to give a 3D appearance.

It looks really good, in other words. The downside is that The Witcher 3 HD Reworked: Nextgen Edition is only available on PC.

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Josh Broadwell
JOSH BROADWELL

Josh is a freelance writer and reporter who specializes in guides, reviews, and whatever else he can convince someone to commission. You may have seen him on NPR, IGN, Polygon, or Rolling Stone shouting about RPGs. When he isn’t working, you’ll likely find him outside with his Belgian Malinois and Australian Shepherd or leveling yet another job in FFXIV.

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