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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Diamond City bustles with all the business of one wanderer.
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.
Geralt playing Gwent in The Witcher 3.
NPC smoke break
Costumed attendees take a break at last year's Dickens Fair.
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.
A lot of people don't like the combat in The Witcher 3. I liked it, but then, I hated Gwent. Whenever the game forced me into a match I'd do my best to lose or forfeit immediately, such was my disdain for the in-universe gambling racket. So Hearts of Card, a mod that replaces combat with Gwent matches, doesn't appeal to me at all, but it might very well appeal to you.
The video above gives you a rough idea of how it pans out: encounter an enemy and, instead of slaying it with your sword, you beat it at Gwent. It might look like a joke, but it's not. It's a fully downloadable mod that you can download now, and apparently you can play through the whole campaign this way. Sounds like a great way to ruin a good game to me, but if you dig Gwent, have fun with it.
That's not the only recent Witcher 3 mod of note: there's also a project aiming to revamp the game's (already quite brilliant) graphics.
On this week's mod Roundup, a more informative HUD arrives for Skyrim and wearable backpacks appear in Fallout 4. Meanwhile, The Witcher 3 gets a beautiful texture makeover, and Arma 3 becomes host to an alien virus in a mod that echos John Carpenter's classic horror film "The Thing."
Here are the most promising mods we've seen this week.
If you're looking for an immersive way to improve your carry weight in Fallout 4 (without strapping on a hulking set of power armor), here's a nice little mod that adds a wearable backpack. Backpacks are always a highly requested mod in Bethesda RPGs: they makes you feel like a real traveler, a drifter, a vagabond. This one is no exception.
I think The Witcher 3 looked pretty nice, but the great thing about the modders of PC games is that they're always working hard to make games look even better. This mod improves—greatly I'd say—the textures of rocks and boulders, crates and sacks, and floors and tiles. Have a look at the video above: comparison shots begin at about 45 seconds in, and you can really see the difference.
This custom scenario for Arma 3 brings to life John Carpenter's landmark horror film The Thing (based on the sci-fi novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campell, Jr., which I recently read.) Set in 1982, you lead a team of Marines to investigate an outpost in Antarctica and deal with (shoot) the horrifying results of an alien virus. Note, it requires several other mods to be installed—you'll find a full list on this Steam Workshop page.
You're romping through Skyrim and spot something: a book, a weapon, a piece of armor. What are its properties? To find out, you need to pick it up, then open your inventory and search for the item to find out. The moreHUD mod makes an item's properties available simply by looking at it. It'll tell you if you've already read the book you're looking at, how a weapon's damage will improve your attacks, and list an ingredient's effects. You can even see how much an item weighs, and how it'll contribute to your current carryweight. Nice!
GOG is throwing a sale on the GOG-exclusive games in in their library, which happens to include a rather popular roleplaying game called The Witcher 3. The huge RPG is half-price, just in time for the holidays. If you already have The Witcher 3 and liked it enough to play more, the Hearts of Stone expansion is a little bit cheaper. If you want to catch up with the series, The Witcher 2 is 85% off.
The sale is also discounting a bunch of the good old games the shop first became known for. The D&D pack is 80% off, and includes Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment, Neverwinter Nights and more. There's plenty more nostalgia to enjoy in the Warhammer and Star Trek bundles. The sale will run until 5:59am PST / 1:59pm GMT on Sunday.
There are also discounts on games that aren't exclusively sold on GOG. You might want to check out Galactic Civilizations 3, which is also currently half-price.
On this week's Mod Roundup, a better way to conduct conversations in Fallout 4, followers that level with you in Skyrim, a complete—and we do mean complete—overhaul of The Witcher 3, and a big update for a Game of Thrones mod for Mount & Blade: Warband.
Here are the most promising mods we've seen this week.
Full Dialogue Interface, for Fallout 4
Fallout 4's conversation UI leaves a lot to be desired. For example, instead of a list of full responses, you only get a brief idea of the tone of what you might say. It can lead to some misunderstandings. And, since this is your character, it makes sense that you'd know what you were actually going to say before you say it. This mod reverts the system to one more similar to Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Find it here.
Followers Level With You, for Skyrim
As you climb the ladder of power in Skyrim, you followers join you... up to a point. Most followers have a level cap of 20, and you may have noticed that when you reach level 40 or 50 your lackeys are comparatively weak against your enemies (to the point that they're getting their lights knocked out immediately). This mod, available on the Steam workshop, means they'll level right alongside you. The Skyrim's the limit.
School of the Roach, for The Witcher 3
Modders are hard at work on changes—major ones—to The Witcher 3. The School of the Roach mod just entered open beta, and it comes with a huge list of changes, starting with increases to the game's difficulty. It also aims to improve combat, rework the economy, provide a more realistic encumbrance system, and make changes to the leveling system. Alchemy, armor, weapons, skills, menus... it sounds like nothing is being overlooked. Read more about it, and help test the beta, right here.
A World of Ice and Fire, Beta 8, for Mount & Blade: Warband
This mod for Mount & Blade: Warband, which transforms the game into Westeros from Game of Thrones, first arrived in 2013, but it's still being improved and added to. It's just entered it's 8th beta version and with it arrives a whole host of changes, additions, and improvements. The list of changes is too long to tackle here, but you can read more about it, and download it, it at Mod DB.
It's Halloween digital game store sale day I guess, so here's one more, from GOG.com. Their Halloween Monster Hunt discounts loadsa vaguely spooky games over the course of five days, from now until Monday November 2. Today's offerings include The Witcher 3 for a bit less, plus moderately whopping savings on Stasis, Deadly Premonition, the Amnesias, both Alan Wakes and more.
35.09 seems like a lot for The Witcher 3, particularly when I just picked it up on PS4 for 10 less from Amazon, but if you've not played Amnesia, the bonkers Deadly Premonition, and the well-regarded The Last Door and The Cat Lady, you can now pick them up for the price of a bag of seasonal sweets.
