The Witcher 3 Remaster: CD Projekt Red Hires Renowned Graphics Modder

If you wanted to play The Witcher 3 with enhanced graphics in recent years, you could hardly avoid the HD Reworked Project. Now, CD Projekt Red is turning this community project into official studio work: The modder known by the handle “HalkHogan” has been permanently hired to integrate his texture and graphics improvements directly into the upcoming Remaster.

What Does Hiring the Modder Mean for the Remaster?

For years, HalkHogan's HD Reworked Project was considered one of the most comprehensive and detailed graphics mods for The Witcher 3, featuring revamped textures for characters, environments, and effects. With the official release of the Remaster on September 29th, his mod will become practically obsolete, as his work will then be directly integrated into the main game. Additionally, CD Projekt Red is collaborating with the Hungarian studio Geeksoft for the Remaster, which is providing technical support for the implementation.

Why is Hiring Modder Talent Beneficial for Studios?

CD Projekt Red is by no means the first studio to bring successful modders onto its team – Bethesda and other developers have often had good experiences with this model. The advantage is clear: modders like HalkHogan often know a game's weaknesses and potential for improvement better than some internal developers, because they've worked on exactly that for years on a voluntary basis. For CD Projekt Red, this means being able to directly adopt proven and community-tested improvements without significant development risks, instead of reinventing the wheel themselves. At the same time, it sends a clever signal to their own modding community: those who deliver truly excellent work have a realistic chance of landing a job at the studio.

For players, this primarily means: If you've previously avoided mods because installation was too complicated, the Remaster will deliver many of these improvements directly in the vanilla game, without any tinkering, starting September 29th.

Source: GamePro

Do you use graphics mods yourself, or do you prefer to wait for official improvements? Discuss with us in the comments!