Looking for the best Witcher 3 mods? The Henry Cavill effect has seen The Witcher 3’s popularity shoot through the roof – a monster-hunting renaissance that actually surpassed the number of concurrent Steam players the game saw on launch day back in 2015. With popularity still not waning, The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt has been updated again, with a next-gen update released on December 13, 2022, adding Ray Tracing, performance upgrades, and a new photo mode.
If that’s not enough to refresh the gameplay for you and inspire another playthrough of one of the best RPG games, nay, one of the best PC games of all time, then there are still plenty of Witcher 3 mods to shake things up instead. CDPR has even gone to the trouble of making this list of which of the most popular mods are compatible with the new update. Modding is now a fairly simple process and can be done with ease once you know how. As always, exercise caution when downloading and installing anything on your computer.
How to install Witcher 3 mods
The Witcher 3 mods can be a little fiddly, so it’s imperative that you follow the install instructions that come with each mod. Where you need to put files can change from mod to mod, so read the instructions carefully. Generally, though, you’ll need to unpack the mod’s files into the Mod folder in your Witcher 3 directory. If you have the game on Steam, this is likely to be found at:
C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\Common\The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt
Or something similar. If you bought the game from Good Old Games, search for ‘GOG Games’ on your hard drive to find the directory.
The best Witcher 3 mods
Here are the best mods for The Witcher 3:
- Fast Travel From Anywhere
- Over 9000 Weight
- E3FX
- 1000 Times Better Reshade
- Lamp On Player’s Boat
- Disable Storybook Loading Screens
- Geralt Hairworks Colors and Styles
- Indestructible Items
- Immersive Camera
- No Dirty Lenses
- Sword FX
- Better Torches
Fast Travel From Anywhere
We’re kicking things off with this absolutely essential fast-travel mod. Witcher 3’s fast travel system tries to make a bit of logical sense by only allowing you to fast travel from set signposts across the world, but this can be really frustrating if you’re miles from one, in the middle of nowhere, and want to quickly complete a quest or get somewhere else. We’re all for taking the scenic route and travelling manually in stunning open-world games, but for the times that you need to hightail it, this is well worth installing.
Over 9000 Weight
This Witcher 3 mod is another absolute must for anyone doing a lengthy playthrough. Sure, it’s more realistic to not be able to carry every single thing under the sun, but it’s much more enjoyable. Plus, Witchers are supposed to have superhuman strength… right?
Over 9000 Weight also means you’ll have a much easier time earning money in the game, as you can loot the hell out of bandit camps for low level swords and armour, before selling them en masse to the nearest merchant.
E3FX
With ray-tracing available in the next-gen update, more realistic shader mods aren’t going to be as game-changing as before, but if you’ve not got an RTX-compatible GPU, or you just want further changes to the realism and smoothness of your surroundings, then there’s still a place for these mods in the action-adventure game.
The E3FX mod is one of the most popular shader modifiers in the community, but if you’ve not experienced it yet, it’s definitely one to try – ray tracing or not. E3FX tweaks the colour and look of White Orchard and the other Wild Hunt locations, and was inspired by the TV show, with different variants to choose from making the world appear brighter or more autumnal, and adds to the game’s fantasy feel.
1000 Times Better Reshade
In contrast to E2FX, 1000 Times Better makes the entire game look much more balanced, removing the weird lighting colours of the vanilla game and giving the whole presentation an updated look.
Lamp on Player’s Boat
This is a simple Witcher 3 mod that does what it says on the tin. Lamp. On. A. Player’s. Boat. But we quite like having a nice little lamp on our boat when I’m sailing the Skellige seas on the dead of night, thank you very much. Not just useful, but aesthetically pleasing, too.
Disable Storybook Loading Screens
If there’s one thing that gets annoying when you’re testing mods, it’s the storybook loading screens that has Dandelion summarising the story so far. This is the best Witcher 3 mod to get rid of them, and it’s easy to install – no mucking around with .ini files like some other mods.
Geralt Hairworks Colors and Styles
OK, so this might be a bit lore-breaking, but it’s still one of our favouites. Of course Geralt is our favourite silver fox, and we wouldn’t have him any other way – well, not permanently. But just like I’ve tried a rainbow of hair colours in my time, it’s nice to try something new one in a while, and so we have the Geralt Hairworks mod. This mod gives up a multitude of options to change up the look of our favourite protaganist, from dark hair, red hair, white eyebrows other colour changes, to more realistic hair, and different ways of wearing it.
Indestructible Items
Much like the hassle of inventory weight limits, it can get a little bit tiresome having to repair your equipment – especially if you’re tackling a higher difficulty playthrough on Blood & Broken Bones or Death March. This Witcher 3 mod, Indestructible Items, stops all that faffing about with repair kits, or paying money to blacksmiths to fix your stuff for you. Simple as.
Immersive Camera
One of the best Witcher 3 mods you can get, Immersive Camera gives you a suite of different camera options for all aspects of the game. You can individually and separately tweak the camera modes for exploration, combat, sailing, horseback, and more – tinkering with the zoom, offset, and height. It’s an absolutely brilliant way to get much more up close and personal with Geralt, and also to give some flexibility to FOV, which can be tweaked in the mod settings too.
No Dirty Lenses
The dirty lens effect in The Witcher 3 is gross. We said it. It’s gross. And this mod removes it entirely. No more wandering through Velen or White Orchard, only to have this otherwise beautiful game muddied up like a mountain bike after a ride through the English woodland. No, no, no.
Sword FX
This is a cool one. Sword FX lets you completely change how your swords appear in-game – from glowing runes from the enhancements you place in them, to the oils you apply, to sign effects like flames for Igni, or a blue, electric force-field glow for Aard. It’s pretty cool, and you can tweak your steel and silver swords separately for added customisation.
Better Torches
A tiny tweak, but something useful if you’re doing a lot of exploration and climbing. Better Torches allows Geralt to ride Roach, fight, climb small ledges, as well as grab onto things while jumping, without putting his lit torch away. There are even new animations for it. He’ll still put it away while climbing ladders (he’s not a miracle man) but it’s still an improvement on the vanilla game.
They’re the best Witcher 3 mods for your first, second, or even third playthrough of this epic fantasy game. And if you were as saddened by the news of Cavill’s departure from the series as, well, everyone else (sorry, Liam Hemsworth), you can keep him around a bit longer and mod his face onto Geralt – complete with extra features and body alterations such as texture changes, so you can fully embrace those hairy arms. If you’ve exhausted this list of Witcher 3 mods, catch up on all The Witcher 4 release date news, though be prepared for quite the wait.
