As if “The Witcher 3” wasn’t already a fantastic release, its developers have decided to take things one step further by releasing an official modding toolkit to their players, allowing them to freely customize the game and create all sorts of interesting additions for it. The kit contains various programs that gamers can use to both modify as well as create content for “The Wither 3”, and we expect to see a strong influx of fan-made assets coming out soon.
However, CD Projekt Red, the game’s developer, wanted to make an important note to their fans – the toolkit is not meant for beginners and it’s aimed at people who’re already familiar with modding at least to some extent, as the tools require some experience and knowledge of the traditional techniques used to modify certain aspects of games.
On the other hand, the tools are quite extensive and cover various aspects of the game’s files, allowing players to easily extract and modify anything they want. Players not only have access to the game’s base assets like textures, models, levels and others, but also things like the UI and even logic scripts that dictate how the game is actually played.
Which means that very soon, we should start seeing impressive mods like the ones featured in “Fallout” and “Skyrim”, which change significant parts of the game and possibly even make it better. We’ve seen countless times that the communities behind certain games can be very creative and productive in the modding scene, and considering the popularity of “The Witcher”, we wouldn’t be surprised if the mods started rolling out in less than a week.
In addition, the company has decided to focus on the popular site Nexus Mods as their central spot for letting their users share their creations. The tools are available for free download at the website, and users don’t even need to sign up for an account, they can just go to the download page, grab the tools and get started.
Of course, contributing to the Nexus community is a different story and the user does need an account in that case, but those who’re preparing to publish their mods are likely well-aware of that and many of them probably have their own accounts already.
Other than the fact that this is great news for the modding community, it’s also good to see that CD Projekt Red are offering their support to Nexus Mods, after the site was about to run into some trouble a few months ago.
It all started when Valve and Bethesda announced their decision to monetize “Skyrim” mods, which led to many prominent mod authors pulling their works from the Nexus website, as they were afraid of being ripped off. Which is exactly what happened just a few days after the system was unveiled, leading to a lot of controversy and debate within the community, ultimately forcing Valve to shut down the system.
And while paid “Skyrim” mods are now history, the damage was already done. It’s not clear if all mod authors would feel confident enough to publish on Nexus now that it’s obvious that Valve will attempt to monetize “Skyrim” again in the future, and once that happens, if the system hasn’t been thought through carefully, it could easily lead to disaster. Not just for fans, but also for Nexus, who might lose a lot of their users and end up fading into obscurity.