The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will almost certainly be one of the best RPGs of this console era. Of course, The Witcher 3 is also launching on PC. With any open world title of this magnitude the anticipation is that the mod community will make a significant contribution to the game. During a demo event Thursday, CD Projekt RED CEO Marcin Iwinski confirmed mod support, including a toolset like REDkit, will be coming to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
“Yes, yes, yes we will. There will be an editor,” Iwinski said. “For Witcher 2 we released it quite late. For Witcher 3 it will be faster.”
The Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings received the REDkit, an official modding toolkit released by CD Projekt RED, two years after the release. There’s no word yet on a timetable for The Witcher 3’s REDkit as Iwinski and his team have other commitments to honor with gamers before modding enters the picture. Namely, that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt releases on time, in working condition and delivers one of the most epic RPG experiences possible. Of course, Iwinski knows it’s impossible to guarantee perfection with an open-world game.
“Look at Skyrim, the last patch was like two years after the release,” Iwinski said. “We want to make sure people have a great experience out of the box and I’m sure we’re going to deliver that. People are working around the clock to make sure everything works great.”
Perfection is something of an obsession in the CD Projekt RED offices. Iwinski laughed as he explained that even the employee cafeteria reviews meals with a five-star rating system.
“Their goal is to get a five-star everyday and when they don’t they will have a serious conversation with us,” he said.
Serious conversations are a big part of CD Projekt RED’s team philosophy. The company listens to fans and respects the value of their feedback. Famously anti-DRM, CD Projekt RED prefers instead to encourage people to not steal its work through digital piracy by being the kind of company worthy of support.
“The DRMs don’t work because they don’t protect anything. In such cases pirates usually have a better experience, and we don’t want to treat our audience that way,” Iwinski said. “If they like us and they like what we’re doing then hopefully they support us. Some companies try the stick but we prefer the carrot approach.”
It’s shaping up to be a tasty carrot thus far. In addition to mod support, which only benefits the PC community, CD Projekt RED announced all 16 pieces of DLC for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be released absolutely free.
“This company is run by gamers. These discussions are easy,” said Iwinski. “The reason we are giving away 16 pieces of DLC for free is because we think it’s fair. We want to say thank you to the people who just shelled out $60 for the game. We want them to keep playing, to keep having fun.”
