New Witcher 3 mod brings full-blown seasons to The Continent, with hopes of making them switch dynamically in the future
Wintery Witcher retextures have been a thing for a bit, but this looks like it's the first crack at doing dynamic seasons, with help from REDkit.
As expected, The Witcher 3's REDkit modding tools have given modders a chance to have a go at doing a lot of complex stuff they couldn't beforehand. The latest of these looks to be the first ever proper attempt at giving the whole map full-blown seasons, and its creator says they're planning to see if they can get the time of year to switch dynamically in the future.
Yep, stop desperately trying to read into the extra line another modder added into TW3's best ending the other day while you wait for more news on The Witcher 4. As far as I can tell, this is a step beyond the very good individual mods that've, for example, allowed you to see what snowy Toussaint would look like.
Inspired by 'Seasons of Skyrim', a mod from a couple of years ago that uses very impressive scripting to allow you to experience dynamically switching climes, and the fact CD Projekt's latest REDkit modding challenge asks folks to show the studio "how fall can transform the Continent", modder ianjoseph1986 has put together 'Weathers and Seasons for the Continent'.
"I started from scratch editing some textures, and I ended up making a full weather and seasons system for The Witcher 3," the modder writes, "I retextured almost every single plant and tree in the game for each season, I can't upload enough pictures to show the different biomes [and] weathers, changes to [do] justice to the changes."
There is one key element of Seasons of Skyrim the modder hasn't been able to replicate yet - though they do state that this is something they're still very much working on - making the seasons switch dynamically, without the player having to do anything. As of right now, the mod comes with different files for the four different seasons - as well as currently requiring some existing mods, such as that Toussaint one I mentioned earlier, to make certain areas wintery - and if you want to change which one you're seeing in game, you've got to manually go into your game's files.
It'll be interesting to see if the modder can actually pull of making those dynamic changes work, given that Skyrim mod relies on some very advanced modding tools that might not be replicable with TW3 to make it happen, but good on them for trying to push the limits.
If you're looking for more interesting Witcher 3 mods made with REDkit, make sure to check out the one that restored the boat races CD Projekt cut from the game prior to its release.