The Witcher 3 is getting a currnet-gen update on December 14 just in time for Christmas, because nothing says jolly like Geralt mucking around with Drowners in the river. But to make this possible, CD Projekt Red teamed up with the modding community who it will reimburse and credit.
"We are including several popular mods in the update (they'll be available depending on the platform)," technical support manager Karolina 'Vinthir' Nieweglowska said on the official forums (thanks, PCGamesN). "We obtained permissions from their creators, reimbursed them, and they'll be featured in the credits of the updated game.
"The mods were reworked and assets optimised as needed, and the game adjusted to run with them. There was even a case when a dev got so engrossed in tinkering when including a mod that he ended up simply remaking that particular asset of the game. So, in a way, the game comes with some mods already included."
However, some modders' work may be broken with this update as several specific files have now changed, and if mods rely on those original files, they will stop functioning. To better help the community, CD Projekt Red put together a list of mods that will work with the current-gen update.
To boot, CD Projekt Red has plans to help modders going forward: "Our team of modding experts led by Bence will provide help and advice to modders on forums post-release when possible," Nieweglowska said. "Alongside the game update we are gonna release a new version of the Witcher 3 command line tools for modders (Modkit) adapted for the updated game with many bug fixes included."
Crediting has long been an issue in the games industry with several devs calling out titles that vary from God of War Ragnarok to Pentiment for failing to include them. Only recently, Pac-Man World: Re-Pac, a remake of 1999 classic, updated its credits to cite the original creators. However, CD Projekt Red looks to be taking steps to ensure that every modder involved gets their dues.