The best Witcher 3 mods
Gameplay tweaks, graphical options, and other tools for enhancing your game.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is one of the best PC RPGs of all time, so the thought of modding it sometimes feels like garnishing a kingly steak with ketchup (and not even Heinz). But the best Witcher 3 mods really do make for an even better game—or at least a more convenient or different game, which is welcome in your second or third trip through the Northern Realms. Even Geralt likes to change things up sometimes.
Below you'll find our list of the best mods for The Witcher 3, updated for a new playthrough in 2020 or beyond. The best Witcher 3 mods include texture overhauls, quality of life boosts like auto looting, and the superhuman ability to frolic through shallow water. We've also listed some popular combat overhauls that subtly and dramatically rework The Witcher 3's most criticized element. You can even make Geralt look more like Henry Cavill, his Netflix counterpart.
Unless otherwise noted, all of these mods should work with the last Witcher 3 patch, version 1.31.
Utilities
The tools you need to make mods work.
Debug Console Enabler
If you’re going to be tinkering around with a lot of mods, you’re going to need the god-like powers of the debug console behind you. This little mod unlocks the debug console, letting you use console commands to change settings, spawn enemies, fix broken things, etc.
Nexus Mod Manager
All of the Witcher mods live on Nexus, and the Nexus Mod Manager is the single best way to wrangle all the competing and conflicting changes that mods might be bringing to your game. While you’re installing mods, pay attention to warnings about conflicts and load orders. If you do see a specific load order, the NMM is where you go to make that change. Otherwise incompatible mods could work perfectly if you load one before the other.
If you are installing a lot of mods, do it just like your mother taught you: go slow, take it easy, and say your prayers.
Mod Merger
Did you know that there’s a “mod limit”? It was news to us. If you are trying to install more mods than the game wants to allow, the Mod Merger can help. The process will take about 15 minutes, but basically the merger will combine your compatible mods into a single customized bundle just for you. Too many mods? No no, sir, as you can see, I am installing only one enormous mod.
As above, be careful with this one. Only spend the time to merge mods you know work well together, otherwise you’ll end up doing the whole process over and over.
Menu and travel
Mods that expedite your journey, clean up your UI and make Dandelion shut the hell up.
Fast Travel from Anywhere
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Geralt's world already has dozens of signposts for fast travel, but sometimes you'll still find yourself spending ages coaxing Roach across countryside for the nearest one. If you're not down for that sometimes humdrum bit of roleplay, this mod lets you teleport to any fast travel point from anywhere, much in the style of Skyrim. If that doesn’t sound fun to you, let us suggest the exact opposite: this mod will cancel all fast travel routes, except for a few that hop between regions.
Use your new fast travel abilities with caution and don't get too hasty: overriding the existing system reportedly causes problems with a tiny number of quests. This one isn’t being updated anymore, so it does have some issues with newer mods. When all else fails, try to resolve conflicts with the mod merger.
All Quest Objectives on Map
While it’s nice that the map isn’t thickly cluttered with icons like some sort of Ubisoft-produced hellscape, trying to remember where the herbalist is can be pretty annoying. This mod adds every map icon to the map all the time, including nearby merchants and any quest objective for any quest in your journal. If it’s too much, you can always customize and hide any markers you don’t need.
Additional Stash Locations
Your Stash is accessible from a few places around the world, but this mod asks: Why not more? Installing this will add eight new stash locations and relocate two of the standard stash locations to more convenient areas. This is especially handy if you’re using a realism mod that adds carry weight to money.
Preparations Mod
One of the best parts of the early Witcher game is feeling like you need to do your homework before any big contract. You brew up Specter oil for the first time and make sure you’re stocked up on Moon dust, you meditate, and you sharpen your silver sword.
This mod recaptures some of that old magic by making meditation a more meaningful process. You need to meditate to spend points in your skill tree, refill alchemical items and oils, and repair items. By default, eating and drinking during combat isn’t allowed with this mod, so you really need to make sure you’re all set before the Noonwraith hits the windmill.
Friendly Meditation
If Preparations Mod sounds like more trouble than fun, check out Friendly Meditation. You still get all the potion refilling benefits of vanilla meditation, but you don’t have to look at a boring ol’ menu. Instead, the HUD falls away and you get a nice view of the clouds zipping past, the stars rotating, and the sun rising over the mountains.
Sometimes, a Witcher just needs to take a damn minute, you know? Just don’t forget the Unification patch on this one.
Friendly HUD
The Witcher 3's UI can feel a bit cluttered, but turning parts of it off can make the game overly difficult. This mod has several features, available in separate downloads if you only want one or two, that improve the on-screen issues. From holding a key down to enter meditation without using the menu, to hiding quest markers unless you're using your Witcher sense, plus HUD elements that can individually be toggled on and off without having to open your menu, and lots more.
Lamp on Player's Boat
Is it a big deal? No. But it sure does look nice. This mod adds a little hanging lamp to your little sailboat. Adorable. Look at that Witcher go.
Disable Storybook Videos
Some of us—we’re not naming names or anything—would be happy to feed Dandelion and his stupid mouth into a woodchipper. Since there are no woodchippers in the Northern Kingdoms, this mod that disables those storybook narration videos that you have to listen to over and over again will have to do.
Jump in Shallow Water
Oh my god, finally.
Combat mods
Make combat harder, or easier, or, most importantly, cooler looking.
Critical Slow Motion Combat Mod
If you've ever felt that The Witcher 3's combat lacks a certain cinematic flair, be sure to pick up this gem. It slows down the action when Geralt lands a critical hit, allowing you to gape in awe at how perfectly that bandit's head flew from his shoulders. If you're feeling particularly vicious, modder KNGR also made a version that combines this with his popular More Blood mod.
Auto Apply Oils
One of the finest bits of roleplaying in The Witcher 3 is its system of weapon oils, as there's some genuine satisfaction in knowing the right mixture for the job. But after hours and hours of digging in Geralt's bags and applying them, even the most dedicated roleplayer among us would be hard-pressed to deny it gets tedious. That's where Auto Apply Oils comes in. Once you're in range of an enemy type specific to a certain oil, it'll automatically apply the oil and leave you to the business of hacking at it with a slab of silver.
AutoLoot
Sick of rummaging through corpses after every battle? This mod automatically picks up all the area loot for Geralt, regardless of whether he's just been battling rotfiends or digging through drawers in Oxenfurt. That's welcome enough in itself, but what makes Auto Loot so great is that it also ensures that Geralt doesn't accidentally steal valuables in his auto-looting frenzy, and it lets you customize what he picks up and what he leaves behind.
FCR3
If you crave a stamp of official approval in a mod, the FCR3 mod was developed by a senior gameplay designer at CD Projekt Red. It’s a huge list of minor tweaks, nerfs, and buffs that make the world more dangerous and balanced. If you’re looking for a general overhaul that will work invisibly in the background, this is your mod. There’s no new art or anything to look at, though, so we’re just using a random picture of Geralt as the picture for this one. Any old, random picture we happen to have around.
E3DodgeSystem
For some long-time Witcher fans, there was once a golden era. All the wine was sweet, all the swords were sharp, and every ghoul was slow and stupid. They call this time: E3 2014. There are several E3 2014 mods that change this or that to more closely resemble how Witcher 3 looked when it was demoed at that happier, simpler time.
We’re not big on nostalgia, but the E3 dodge system was pretty sweet. Geralt is much less acrobatic, and he keeps his feet on the ground and his sword pointed forward. This is a good mod for players who want a combat system that plays pretty much the same, but without all the Cirque du Soleil showiness.
Plus, if you have a second to breathe in combat, Geralt will flex his hands and idly twirl his sword to stay loose. Menacing!
Gear and trade
Mods to lighten or weigh down your load, rebalance loot and make your gear look cooler than ever.
Over 9000 Weight
Geralt can already carry quite a bit considering he's just a guy with sweet leather getups and two cumbersome swords, but if you're the sort of hoarder who can't bear the thought of tossing away a collection of Witch Hunter's Swords, then this is the mod for you. The resulting weight limit? You guessed it, Vegeta. It's over 9,000. Now you'll (almost) never have to worry about whether you should hang on to that trophy that's taking up so much room but has an extremely situational bonus. Just do it.
Increased Creature Loot
The game may be called Wild Hunt, but hunting creatures and monsters isn't a great way to make a living. If you're tired of bagging a bunch of deer and walking away with little to show for it, the Increased Creature Loot mod will up your chances of animals dropping meat, hide, and other ingredients.
TradesMan
It's annoying to cart a load of loot into town and find a vendor so poor he can't afford to buy it all. This mod gives vendors some deeper pockets, and gently encourages them to pay you more for your goods. This patch was abandoned before 1.31, but if you still want to use it you have two options: this unofficial patch or this updated remix uploaded by another modder.
The Gwent Card Dealer
It’s tough to travel all the time for work and travel for fun at the same time. Eventually it all starts to feel like work, right? If your Geralt loves a good round of Gwent but just doesn’t feel like climbing into the saddle again to go find cards, The Gwent Dealer will save him a lot of Frequent Roach Miles. This mod turns the Baron’s quartermaster into the all-playing, all-dealing Gwent collector of Velen. He sells all his usual wares and almost every card in the game.
Useful Witcher Tool Inkeeper
Just like the Gwent Dealer mod, this mod turns a humble innkeeper into the world’s greatest Witcher quartermaster. The innkeeper in Dandelion’s tavern now sells every Witcher potion, oil, bomb, rune, mutagen, and arrow. Unbalanced? Yes. But you can’t argue with convenience.
Black Scabbards
Ugly gear. It’s a shame, but it happens to the best of Witchers, no matter how hard we try to color coordinate. If the new mastercrafted sword set you’ve been working toward for hours turns out to have a hideous teal scabbard set that clashes with the rest of your ensemble, just download Black Scabbards to settle the problem. We’re told that black goes with everything, so this should get you sorted out.
Geralt Cloak
On the one hand, this is minor cosmetic change that doesn’t matter at all. On the other hand, this is the most amazing mod ever designed. It’s a fact that looking cool is the single highest priority in a singleplayer RPG, and Geralt absolutely looks cool as hell wrapped in a thick wool cloak. Most importantly, new key bindings will have Geralt raise or lower his hood, depending on the weather and your mood.
Sezon Burz Witcher Gear
There are more gear set mods out there than you can shake a silver sword at, but one of our favorites is the Sezon Burz gear. Based on descriptions from the Andrzej Sapkowski book Storm Season, this set fits right in with the Witcher lore and world design while being totally new. Plus, it comes in several level and power options so you can wear it throughout your Northern Kingdom adventure.
Indestructible Items
Depending on your personality, some parts of the Witcher’s day-to-day can become interminable—especially after a couple hundred hours of adventuring. If spending time and money repairing your gear is getting tedious, Indestructible Items pulls the entire weapon degradation system out of the game. It’s a small change with big effects.
Graphics and camera changes
Photo mode, reworked textures, HUD tweaks and more.
HD Reworked (Updated to 12.0)
This graphical overhaul mod hit another major milestone in 2020, reaching version 12.0. It's a 9.3GB download that gives you better, crisper, more detailed models and textures. Rocks, trees, crates, roofs, walls, waterfalls, furs, and floors have all been overhauled with increased resolutions and brightness. The video above gives some great transition examples so you can see the difference yourself.
AMM - The Appearance Menu
This handy tool lets you transform Geralt and Roach at the touch of a button, adding cloaks, new haircuts and changing the appearance of armor that you can combine to create presets that you can switch to instantly. All the changes are cosmetic, so you can give yourself the best-looking gear in the game straight away without breaking the game balance.
Lore-friendly Witchers
This mod makes Geralt look a bit more like a mutant, with paler skin and more striking, feline eyes, along with some other touches that make him look a bit more like his counterpart from the books and earlier games. If the hot dad look isn't doing it for you, try this on for size.
Absolute Camera
Unhappy with the camera placement while you're running, fighting, riding, or swimming? Absolute Camera doesn't just change the camera distance and angle but gives you over a dozen completely customizable options for camera placement during Geralt's many activities. In the video above you can get a look at just how flexible the new camera tools are.
Realistic Weather
If you're looking for a better weather experience in Novigrad and environs, then be sure to pick up this relatively recent mod. It places a heavy emphasis on fog, but it also brings other treats such as more snow in Skellige and better light rain animations. If you think it overdoes it, the description page has a list of settings you can freely change with console commands.
PhotoMode
Want to take some awesome screenshots of Geralt in action? This mod provides a toggle button that lets you freeze the game at will, then fly your camera around in 3D space to line up the perfect picture. There's also a toggle for making yourself invisible and an option to spawn fog and mist to make your shots more atmospheric. Requires the Debug Console Enabler.
If you want to make the most of the PhotoMode, check out our guide on how to take a screenshot and get some inspiration from our collection of fantasy landscape screenshots.
Fantasy Graphics
Looking for a more lush and colorful look? The Fantasy Graphics mod removes some of the bluish tint from the game and makes some tweaks to the lighting to provide more of a high fantasy look.
No Dirty Lenses
The Northern Kingdoms, especially Velen and Novigrad, are filthy places full of muck, but you can’t do any decent photography with a dirty lens! Wipe them on your pants to get them clean, just like the pros do. No Dirty Lenses removes the old water spots and dirt effects from the in-game camera, but you’ll still get water on the screen from splashing through a river or looking up at the rain.
More Blood
The Witcher 3 is good. Great, even. But what if it was more like a Tarantino film? More Blood adds bucketloads of blood and blood trails. Geralt gets covered in blood, blood sprays off of swords, demons spray out black blood, it’s a bloody blood good blood time.
Increased Draw Distance
If your rig has the horsepower to spare, consider using this mod to ramp up the draw distance. The wide open world of the Witcher is huge, after all, but it’s even better if you can see miles of it at once. This mod comes with a whole range of options from a little boost to a huge, miles-long vista view. Fair warning that you’ll probably see your performance drop if you turn on Ultra mode in Novigrad—unless your computer is beefy enough, that is.
More Shadows
Filing once again to the department of “If your rig can handle it,” More Shadows adds dynamic shadows to many in-game light sources. Torches on walls will cast their own shadow over the sconce below them, and large braziers in cities will throw all kinds of harsh angles across cobbled streets. Patrolling guards carrying torches will also cast shadows, but this can be a little wonky. If you run into problems, there’s an alternate version that removes shadows from guards’ torches.
Vampires Have No Shadows
Just like the More Shadows mod, except exactly not like that. The opposite, in fact. Most NPC vampires, being the unnatural creatures that they are, cast no shadows even though they walk in the sun! Chilling.
Henry Cavill
This graphical mod does the inevitable: turns Geralt of Rivia into Henry Cavill as he appears in The Witcher Season 2. Check out the mod's page for a list of other Witcher 3 mods to turn Geralt into the biggest, TV-ready version of himself possible. As of posting, the Henry Cavill mod is still very new, but the author has plans to continue adding additional Cavill versions of Geralt in the future.
Overhaul mods
Make massive changes to The Witcher 3's combat, alchemy, and other systems.
The Enhancement System
Need a few more weapons and armor options? This mod makes NPC weapons, like Imlerith's giant mace and several others, available to Geralt either through merchants or by crafting. New schematics in shops will allow for even more weapon options, and upgrades are available for relics as well.
Be careful: this one makes a lot of changes, so it's a bit of a doozy to install.
The Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition
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We've written about this one in more detail: it’s a complete reimagining of The Witcher's combat systems. The biggest change is that it removes autotargeting. Instead of twirling around between enemies like a demented pinball with a sword, Geralt’s acrobatic attacks just go wherever you point him. This means you can charge and flip behind an enemy or around an enemy’s shield.
It’s a big change, but it doesn’t even begin to describe how much stuff TW3EE changes. There are new animations, new ways to parry, and different ways to charge over distances. Every attack has a chance to cause an injury, so you might need to finish a fight with a crippled arm or a broken leg. The changes are so big that they bleed over into leveling, alchemy, signs, and items.
If you’ve played through New Game+ a few times and you’ve just seen and done everything The Witcher 3 has to offer, then the enhanced edition might be your new excuse for reinstalling. It’s best to use a clean, un-modded install for this one, then gently add in other mods one at a time.
Ghost Mode
Ghost Mode is no less ambitious than the Enhanced Edition, but it uses a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer. It doesn’t throw out the vanilla game, but it polishes all those little things that weren’t quite right. You can’t find rare dimeritium plate on a poor peasant’s bookshelf, all ingredients weigh something (but you’ll need less of them for alchemy), non-Witcher gear sets are more useful and powerful, descriptions and typos have been cleaned up, enemies have new armor bonuses and limited stamina pools, and on and on and on.
If you think The Witcher 3 is busted and needs a total overhaul from the roots, head to the Enhanced Edition. If you think it needs a solid two years’ worth of careful balancing and polish from a talented QA team, then Ghost Mode will be more your speed.
Again, use a clean, un-modded install for this one before you start to tinker with other mods.