The Witcher 3 got its first major expansion last week in the form of Hearts of Stone, and I thought it was pretty good. Since then CD Projekt RED has acknowledged and promised to address a series of issues ushered in by the new DLC, and that's about to arrive with patch 1.11.

It's a huge list of minor changes and tweaks, so if you want an exhaustive overview you best click over here. Among the highlights are rebalanced boss battles basically, the challenge they present will more closely mirror the difficulty level you're playing at. 

The patch applies to the main game too, so even if you don't have the Hearts of Stone DLC you may notice some improvements, and a couple of bugged quests have been patched over as well.

The Witcher 3 Modkit came out a couple months ago, which was nice, but it didn't make everyone entirely happy because it was somewhat limited in scale compared to the Redkit mod tool released for the first two Witcher games. CD Projekt Community Manager Marcin Momot said at the time that the studio was "not planning to release anything else" as far as mod tools go, but today revealed on the CD Projekt forums that an update to the Modkit that will enable users to add new textures to the game is "right around the corner."

The full list of coming changes:

• Fixed a bug causing wcc_lite to fail when uncooking the game.
• Added the abilty to mod textures from the textures array.
• Added a warning information when wcc_lite failed due too long file path.
• Cleaned up wcc_lite output log.
• Fixed a bug when some normal maps and speculars were imported incorectlly. Now imported textures which name ends with "_n" and "_s" will be assigned to proper categories.
• It is now possible to add new textures using mods.
• Several fixes and minor improvements to Script Studio.

One thing that won't be changing is the interface, or lack thereof. In response to a user who said he'd like the Modkit to support a UI instead of "only CMD coding," Momot wrote, "Doubt this will happen. Sorry."

Unfortunately for those champing at the bit of better modding, a release date more precise than "right around the corner" hasn't been announced.

There was a time when "bigger," in videogame terms, was synonymous with "better." But more recently, it's not unusual to hear the opposite sentiment: That gamers just don't have time for 100-hour epics, and that an awful lot of effort is being wasted on huge games that only a tiny slice of players ever actually finish. CD Projekt Visual Effects Artist Jose Teixeira doesn't agree with that sentiment, however, telling MCV, "If anything, The Witcher 3 proved the point that players are more interested in longer games."

Teixeira was describing how the Witcher 3 achieved major mainstream success, well beyond the first two games in the series, despite being a game that by all appearances should only appeal to a relatively niche—and therefore, small—market. "We are still amazed at how many people played The Witcher 3, because it s a game style that is usually reserved for hardcore audiences," he said. "People actually loved it, especially more in the casual audience, which we re really impressed with."

It also, he explained, demonstrates that those more "casual" players aren't necessarily put off by games that demand big time investments. "Now, especially, you hear so many people talking about how the triple-A games industry is there and nobody wants that experience anymore, and here you go—a nice, well-written single-player experience," he said. "There s no multiplayer, there s no microtransactions; you get a game, you play the game and enjoy the game, and it s a great success."

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was undeniably successful, but it also bears noting that, according to its Steam achievements, less than 25 percent of people who own it have actually finished the thing. Even so, CD Projekt isn't giving up on big experiences: Teixeira said its next project, Cyberpunk 2077, will be even bigger—"far, far bigger"—than The Witcher 3. It's an interesting contrast to the approach taken by Activision in the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, which developer Treyarch recently announced would launch with all campaign missions unlocked from the very start, enabling players to skip to any part of the game, at any time—even the very end, if they choose.

Speaking of big games, CD Projekt recently added some bulk to the Witcher 3 with the release of its first expansion, Hearts of Stone. Read our review right here.