Heaping praise on The Witcher 3's vast new modding tool, Cyberpunk 2077 sequel lead says some of the "best devs in CD Projekt are former modders"

The Witcher 3
(Image credit: CD Projekt)

A former Witcher 3 developer has said some of CD Projekt's "best devs" started out as modders - just as the developer just released a powerful new modding tool for the 2015 RPG for free.

The Witcher 3: REDkit launched earlier this week on Steam, free for anyone who owns The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It's a supremely powerful and streamlined modding tool straight from CD Projekt itself, letting users tweak quests, cutscenes, animations, items, and more. You can even create your very own original storylines and epic battles. 

Now, Pawel Sasko, who previously worked on The Witcher 3 as a senior quest designer, has spoken about the "very special place" modding has in his heart in the tweet just below. Additionally, Sasko adds that some of the "best devs" at CD Projekt started out as modders, before turning "their love for video games and art into [a] daily job!"

A few of the developers Sasko might be referring to are featured in the video from CD Projekt just below. Expert quest designer Danisz Markiewicz and lead quest designer Blazej Augustynek spoke about how they both started out modding PC games for fun, and current Witcher narrative director Philipp Weber also reveals that he first got started with game development by modding maps for Age of Empires 2.

Weber, for his part, has already been playing around with REDkit over the last few weeks. The veteran CD Projekt developer revealed he modded Blood and Wine's best quest to bring it closer to the original, individual vision that he had during development nearly a decade ago, before it was fine-tuned and tweaked by others developers.

We're already seeing some incredibly strong mods via REDkit, even though it only just launched earlier this week. One creation, for example, made The Witcher 1's biggest city into an explorable environment in The Witcher 3, and might give players a pretty good idea of how Vizima is going to function when The Witcher 1 remake eventually rolls around. 

This could be a really fun way to while away the weeks and months until The Witcher 4 eventually materializes. 

Hirun Cryer

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.