The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is all about the White Wolf, Geralt of Rivia. But what if you want to undertake his down-and-dirty adventures as someone else—specifically, as a woman? Now you can, to an extent, thanks to a mod that lets you replace the G-Man with Triss, Yennifer, Ciri, or Shani. 

It's not a perfect transition, or even complete: The mod doesn't work with the Nilfgaardian, Temerian, or Skelligian DLC armor sets, and it uses Geralt's animations in combat. More distractingly, your character will also continue to speak in Geralt's voice despite the change in appearance, which might pull you out of the moment a bit.

Even so, it's an impressive bit of work, as is the Spawn Companion mod, which enables you to bring Lambert, Eskel, Ves, Cirilla, or Kiyan along with you on your journeys. The latest changelog notes that its compatibility with other mods has been improved but is still not guaranteed, although as you can see in the video above, courtesy of Br34k, it works quite nicely with the Playable Triss mod. I haven't tried it myself, but Reddit says the companions can be helpful in combat. And hey, at least you'll have someone to talk to besides Roach, right?

A few other cool mods to lay your eyes on, in case you missed them: Better textures, Gwent fights, and the Infected Mode, which you should probably handle with extreme caution.

Thanks, Polygon.

The Witcher 3 is hardly lacking for detail, but textures could always be sharper—rocks rockier, tiles shinier, chests woodwormier. Rocks, spruces, wood crates, sacks, ceramic rooftops and checkered floors are all improved by The Witcher 3 HD Reworked project, now updated to version 2.0 and available to download from The Witcher 3 Nexus.

Mod author Halk Hogan PL plans to return to the mod to rework more textures, but is torn between Fallout 4 and The Witcher 3. If you recognise the name, Halk did some great HD texture packs for Skyrim. Check out these lovely mushrooms.

Halk reckons the HD pack won't slow down the game too much, though in my experience HD texture packs can affect performance a bit. Sadly I can't try it out as I'm away from a gaming PC, and the rest of the PCG clan has succumbed to a mince-pie-and-meat coma. If you've received The Witcher 3 as a gift or want to spruce it up for a languid post-Xmas adventuring session, this could help, as might the many other Witcher 3 mods we've tried out since launch.

Thanks Blues News.

Gwent is a Witcher 3: Wild Hunt minigame that, unlike Geralt's other tavern-based pastimes (drinking and fighting), proved to be wildly popular in its own right: A couple of CD Projekt developers posted a tutorial video on YouTube to help new players grasp the basics of the card game, and a Gwent mod for Tabletop Simulator was released shortly thereafter. CD Projekt even created a sweet physical edition of a Gwent deck for the Hearts of Stone retail release. But it all pales in comparison to this "Ultimate Gwent Set", which was created by Imgur user Waffleguru.

It is, in my ever-so-humble opinion, nothing short of spectacular: Five laminated decks (with duplicate cards, for effective deck-building), a cotton-canvas playing surface, full rules printed on "magazine cover paper," cheat-sheet cards, counter tokens, and gems (in their own little pouches), all contained in a gorgeous wooden chest (at least, it looks like wood) with a leather carrying strap. "Glorious" isn't a strong enough word to describe this thing, which she made for her Gwent-hooked boyfriend, and yet amazingly it's not the only magnificent videogame treasure she created for the holidays: He's also getting this fantastic, loot-loaded Fallout 4 ammo box. Needless to say, my envy is off the scale.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt wins our 2015 GOTY award for Best Singleplayer. Yesterday, we revealed our overall Game of the Year winner, and the distinction between these two awards is explained by our process. Each staff member casts votes for multiple games, and then we tally them up, agree on an overall winner, and tailor the rest of our award categories to best represent why we love the games we chose. We felt that the Witcher 3 deserved recognition most for its expansive, richly detailed story and world, which we talk all about below.

Shaun Prescott: A strange thing happened when I was playing The Witcher 3. When someone spoke to me I listened. When a cutscene played I didn t mash my keyboard in search of the skip button. When Geralt faced a difficult decision, I stared at the wall and thought about it. Many other RPGs hit that sweet spot for players more patient than I, but it s my belief that CD Projekt RED hits it better than anyone else—by a long margin. Sitting down to an evening of The Witcher 3 feels like diving into a meticulously written fantasy novel, and it still astonishes me that it s far more than a great story. It s a game too of course, with one of the most rugged, despairingly bleak yet oddly beautiful worlds I ve ever explored, and more adventures than I could ever hope to embark on. How did a once tiny, still independent Polish studio pull this off? With love, obviously. Love and care is writ large over every aspect of The Witcher 3, from the frequent post-launch updates to the way the sun melts over the plains of Velen. Just don t talk to me about Gwent. I hate Gwent.

The Witcher 3 is one of the best RPGs I ve played.

Andy Kelly: I tried and failed to get into the first two Witcher games, but this is the one that finally clicked. In terms of quests, The Witcher 3 is one of the best RPGs I ve played. The writing, characters, locations, and rich lore of the world combine to create some really compelling side-quests. It was Family Matters , the tale of the troubled Bloody Baron and his missing wife and daughter, that really made me love the game. It has everything that makes it great: fantastic voice acting, gruesome monsters, and tough moral decisions. From the snowy islands of Skellige to the grand city of Novigrad, The Witcher s world is just as vividly realised as its characters, and exploring on horseback, helping people and taking on mercenary work, makes you feel like almost like a wandering samurai.

James Davenport: There was a moment in The Witcher 3 where I had to pause the game, set down the controller, and go on a long walk. It wasn't after a tiresome battle or character death or revelatory plot twist. I went on a walk because I just told someone that I didn't love them anymore and I wasn't sure it was the right thing to do. Thing is, I could have told this character that I did love them. It's a game after all, my decisions don't carry real consequence. Sex 'em all! But I was so absorbed by the world and my relationships that I felt compelled to be honest, to be a good person. Not because it gave me more Good Guy Blue Points that would eventually unlock a cool good guy roundhouse kick, but because I felt like I needed to be honest, that I needed to be good person for the sake of being a good person.

This quest in particular speaks to the amount of detail and care in nearly every aspect of The Witcher's design. Relationship questlines are expected in RPGs now, but CDProjekt took a trope, scrubbed it of cliches, and bathed it in subtlety. The same can be said for the bulk of the writing and narrative. This was just a moment. I spent 80 hours living in The Witcher 3. Coupled with challenging combat, a gorgeous war torn open world, and—everyone except Shaun's favorite—Gwent, The Witcher 3 is one of the best games I've played.

I ve never been absorbed so utterly by a world, or for so long.

Wes Fenlon: It s hard for me to convey how utterly and completely I was absorbed in the world and story of The Witcher 3. I played it for more than three months. It was just about the only PC game I played during that time. When I felt the end drawing close, I avoided it for days, taking on one sidequest after another. In great RPGs, sidequests are often more interesting than the main story, giving you a peek into the world you re exploring or teaching you something new about your own character. The Witcher 3 is not just great. It s exemplary, utterly stuffed with both mainline and secondary quests more nuanced and original than the best moments in other RPGs I ve played. I ve never been absorbed so utterly by a world or for so long.

Phil: As a campaign, The Witcher 3 is fantastic. It's filled with some of the best quests and side-stories around. There's a clever progression from previous Witcher games, massively expanding the world and its individual vignettes, while dialling back on some of the more complex systems. To an extent, I wish CD Projekt Red had doubled down on the series' systemic quirks—like the investigative research elements that they've never quite perfected—rather than sanding down their rough edges. But make no mistake, this is a quality production, and a beautifully crafted world full of stories.

That, to me, is why it deserves a Best Singleplayer reward. As a moment-to-moment experience, it can be lacking—the combat is annoyingly imprecise, and there's little that's groundbreaking about its open world encounter design. It's not as revolutionary or as fascinatingly playable as MGS5, our Game of the Year. But as a campaign—a journey through a narrative with strong characters and meaningful consequences—there's nothing that quite surpassed its quality.

Tim Clark: It feels entirely appropriate that the game which felt most luxurious to spend time alone in was also the one that launched a million hot tub thumbnails.

We'll be posting the rest of our awards and personal picks daily as we approach the end of the year, and you can find them all on our main GOTY page.

This week on the Mod Roundup, the combat in The Witcher 3 is completely replaced with games of Gwent, and Grand Theft Auto turns into Grand Theft Mario. We've also got a mod that adds immersive and impressive weather events in Fallout 4, and another modder has edited thousands of textures to give Torchlight 2 a pleasing hand-drawn look.

Here are the most promising mods we've seen this week.

True Storms, for Fallout 4

Download Link

Modder fadingsignal, who previously created a True Storms mod for Skyrim, has brought his weather-modding talents into Fallout 4. The mod introduces heavier downpours, deadlier radiation storms, dust storms, better fog, and more immersive weather events, along with new particle effects and sounds. Check out the video above for some comparisons, then grab an umbrella.

Hearts of Card, for The Witcher 3

Download Link

There's a lot of love among The Witcher 3 players for Gwent, and modder DickDangerJustice seems to enjoy the in-game CCG more than anyone. He's gone and made a mod that replaces combat—all combat—with games of Gwent. Winning still nets you the same XP and loot, it's just that instead of swinging swords and casting spells, you're playing cards.

Mario Kart , for GTA 5

Download Link

I think my favorite mods are when one game is smooshed into another. Modder MrVicho13 has converted maps from Mario Kart 8 and delivered them into Grand Theft Auto 5. In the video above, by mod fan DayL, you can see Michael speeding through Yoshi Valley. This would be the perfect mod for multiplayer, but, you know, oh well.  Thanks to Mike Fahey at Kotaku!

Ink'd, for Torchlight 2

Download Link

There are two versions of Ink'd, which transforms the look of Torchlight 2 (through the painstaking editing of thousands of textures), giving it a nice but subtle hand-drawn, storybook feel. There's the version if you use the Synergies mod, and one for vanilla.

We heard earlier this week that CD Projekt's next RPG epic, Cyberpunk 2077, will maybe—maybe, I said!—be out in 2016. As it turns out, a release date has actually been set, but CEO Adam Kici ski said in an interview with Money.pl (translated by NeoGAF) that the studio won't reveal it until it's ready to start the marketing campaign. And that's not likely to happen for a good while yet, because the focus in 2016 will remain firmly on The Witcher.

CD Projekt has said in the past that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will wrap up Geralt's trilogy, but now it sounds like the studio isn't quite ready to walk away from the White Wolf just yet. "This and the next year will be devoted to The Witcher. Apart from the second expansion we have some additional ideas. They should help us animate sales in 2016," Kici ski said. "The game is selling so well, that we are convinced there are still many people who will buy it if we promote it further."

That, he explained, is a big part of why CD Projekt hasn't made any real noise about Cyberpunk 2077, even though it's been working on the game for a long time. "We already have the release date for Cyberpunk 2077 planned, but we won't announce it until we are ready to start the marketing campaign," he continued. "At the moment we're concentrating on The Witcher and don't want to distract users from that product, which we are still monetizing."

In spite of that emphasis on "monetization," a word that doesn't always carry that happiest connotations for gamers, Kici ski insisted that the studio doesn't view its fan base as anonymous money-spouts. "We are trying to quickly fix any wrongs/problems and want players to talk to us as equals. And that's how we really look at things," he said. "We don't want to exploit gamers for their money (which is what many other gaming companies do) and that's why we don't want to become a part of a larger structure."

The second and, presumably, final Witcher 3 expansion Blood and Wine is set to come out in early 2016.

Thanks, CGM.

Geralt of Rivia, AKA the White Wolf, AKA The Witcher, is a man who makes his living killing things. You got a problem? He's the solution. He's basically a cross between Kraven the Hunter and The Equalizer—except in the month of December, that is. Because in December, he dresses up in a red suit and delivers gifts to all the good little Drowners and Noonwraiths in the world.

That may not be entirely canon, but it is sort of true, in the sense that CD Projekt's Holiday Outfit Mod contest may result in Geralt wearing a goofy red suit for the winter. The contest kicked off today, and it's pretty simple as these things go: Make an outfit or "holiday element" for any of the characters in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, upload it to Nexus Mods with the "Witcher Mod Contest" tag, and then fill out the form at the link above. Blam, you're done.

The winner will receive a one-of-a-kind Witcher sword forged by Hattori himself—"seriously," the studio insists, although I'm not sure how that will work since Hattori is an Elf. In any event, this is a real, actual sword (see below) and it comes with a real, actual warning that delivery of the prize is contingent upon being able to legal mail a deadly weapon to your country of residence. That's the kind of disclaimer you're only ever going to get from a CD Projekt contest.

The Witcher 3 Holiday Outfit Mod contest is live now and runs until January 5.

Every year near the start of December the exhibition halls at the Cow Palace (an imposing Daly City complex originally built for livestock expos, and really called that) are filled with faux Victorian bars and shops, large bearded men singing sea shanties, elaborate dresses and corsets, fake English accents, fake drunks fake passed out on a light dusting of straw, and me, teetering down my fifth beer, splashing it on my anachronistic polka dot sweater as I try to point out Father Christmas to someone who wandered away five minutes ago. Ah, it s the Great Dickens Christmas Fair, a holiday classic!

I ve been to the Bay Area s yearly fair twice, and while there s a lot of production to its recreation of Charles Dickens London—musicians, dancers, wandering characters, shops and booze, meat pies and some excellent whiskey cakes—after a couple hours you ve really seen it all. The theatre flats draped with garlands all start to look the same, and the shops don t get any more interesting, unless cravats from the haberdashery are part of your sartorial experience.

This year, though, I stayed for five hours of drinking and merriment. I watched the same costumes and characters circle the enclosed city again and again, like live-action NPCs. It was a lot like being the main character of an RPG: an outsider in a town built to cater to outsiders, where the residents perform a Truman Show-style deception in pretending this facade actually meets the needs of a real population. They wander around pointing things out just for me. Oh, there s Ebenezer Scrooge, and there s the Ghost of Christmas Past, a stranger explains. What s this? Steampunk? says a teenager in line for fish and chips as a man dressed like a Victorian Ghostbuster trundles past for the third time. Everyone is surprised by everything. The shopkeepers push trinkets, toys, nightlights, and hand-made brooms, but none of them ever actually go to each other s shops. It's a city in perpetual motion, apparently sustained by nothing and going nowhere.

Fallout 4 s Diamond City has the same feeling. It purports to have a population but seems mostly to be a collection of shopkeepers who sell their junk to me and me alone. It s small, and once you know where something is you just go there—at the Dickens Fair, it s a mental map of the bars and toilets—and after an hour any sense of discovery tapers off. I get it, you re the shopkeep who hates synths. And you can cut my hair. Happy to be your one and only customer. Happy to fund this entire city.

Diamond City is boring, and that's a problem for me (perhaps mitigated by player run settlements, but I haven't gotten to building one up). Towns and cities are my favorite parts of RPGs, and I ve always wanted to really role-play someone who belongs to one of these places. In the early 2000s, I spent a lot of time hanging out in Everquest s Freeport, imagining what sort of life a dwarf might have there, but not really living it. Much later on, I tried to wring everything I could out of Skyrim s Whiterun, hanging out at The Bannered Mare listening to songs for as long as I could before boredom sent me on a quest. I try to get more out of these places than they're meant to give me, because I'm really supposed to be questing and fighting monsters and all that.

The best RPG place I ve ever been was made of text. I used to play a MUD—a text-based MMO in modern terms—and at some point I d leveled up more than I d ever need to, so I just sat in one of my guild s rooms and chatted and emoted, sometimes in character, sometimes out. We used items and cast spells for effect. We were the world s flavor text, actors in the fair, especially when we messed with newbies. I miss that. I still think of it as a place I went, and I can still picture the red curtains in my usual hangout, even if it was all text. I went there just to be there, and that's a hard sort of place to find in a game.

Text as a means for virtual reality is powerful because it s so malleable. We could change the room descriptions, we could teleport, we could punch each other, we could bring a smurf to the guild and let it wander around. It's about interacting in little ways to feel like you belong, and I find that so much more fun than being a perennial outsider. I got a Dreamcast for Shenmue not because I wanted to fight, but because I heard you could play arcade games in the game. I think The Witcher 3 s card game, Gwent, is a very artful inclusion: playing cards is the sort of social interaction you can simulate when making conversation is so hard (I haven t met any NPCs who can pass the Turing Test just yet), and it gives Geralt and the player a reason to stick around and be a part of the setting. And of course I made Commander Shepard dance at Mass Effect s clubs and get hammered on batarian ale. I loved establishing a Shepard who takes part in the galaxy she lives in, even if I was just watching her awkwardly wobble around.

In that vein, and because I couldn t take five hours of circling a livestock hall, my party and I claimed a corner of an absinthe bar and blended in like animatronic patrons, focusing on drinking, clinking our plastic cups, and laughing boisterously. I started as an outsider and ended the night with a top hat on my head drinking ginger beer and rum, a drunk fake-Londoner at home. Ello govna, I probably said too much, knowing full well that hallo would be the correct greeting. But who s keeping score?

The people having the most fun at the Dickens Fair are the ones in costume, not the outsiders they re playing it up for. I didn t dress up, but with rum and company and a bad accent, I made a corner of it mine. A virtual reality is built with all the little interactions that make up life, and it s when games stop explaining everything and start treating me like a resident of the world that I get into them. Let me drink, play cards, and dance, because I can only watch a Victorian Ghostbuster stomp around in circles for so long before I'm headed for the rum.

CD Projekt have snuck two screenshots onto Twitter of the second and final Witcher 3 expansion, Blood and Wine. This one takes place in Toussaint, a Nilfgaardian duchy big on wine and tradition. As its name and favourite tipple suggest, Toussaint takes after southern France, all bright colours, terracotta roofs and sunshine. Maybe it'll be the thing to relieve that haunting misery I've felt since stepping into Velen.

Not much is known about Blood and Wine other than a vague release window of the start of next year and even vaguer allusions to an 'ancient and bloody secret'. The Witcher 3's first expansion, Hearts of Stone, proved to be another solid chunk of witchering, if not a revelation. At another 20 hours, Blood and Wine ought to keep us hunting monsters and being moody well into 2016.