The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt News

This Witcher 3 mod overhauls the RPG's starting area in glorious 4K

White Orchard is pretty stunning as-is, if a little ramshackle. The starting area where The Witcher 3 hero Geralt begins the RPG game's adventure, with its gloomy, windswept look and that music, is a lovely place to get acquainted with the game when you're out of the Kaer Morhen tutorial. Now, though, you can take it up a whole other level thanks to a new mod that overhauls its visuals with glorious photogrammetry-based 4K.

The creator behind some incredible Skyrim mods and Fallout 4 mods called - graphical overhaul series called 'Textures Redone' and 'Texture Overhaul', respectively - has posted a new treat on The Witcher 3's slice of Nexus Mods. Their latest creation extensively reworks White Orchard's own textures. "The mod will provide 4K professional made textures with PBR (physical-based rendering) features," modder Gorgulla says, explaining that this isn't "a simple recolour or a sharpen/upscale mod".

The mod folds in 4K textures that have been crafted using photogrammetry - a process of recording and replicating information about real, physical objects and the world through photographic imagery. It adds rendered textures with a physical basis, as well as more "realistic" aspects that mirror the real world, such as shadow occlusion and reflections.

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The best sex games on PC

What are the best sex games on PC? From steamy sexy times in The Witcher 3, space rumpy-pumpy in Mass Effect: Andromeda, to kinky bedroom antics in Fallout 4, these are the sexiest games on PC.

Sex. It's all around us. It's leaking out of the walls. It's flooding up through the floorboards. "Where's all this sex coming from?" screams your mother, as she puts the sofa up on cinder blocks to protect it from the rising tide of sex. "Get all of the white goods up the stairs!"

"Get with it mum, you massive prude," you shout in reply, opening the back door and allowing a great wave of filthy sex to wash over the living room, carrying your dad's slippers away in a frothy deluge while the family dog barks and barks, confused and soaking. That's sex for you. Or houses in low-lying flood plains. I can never remember which is which.

Anyhoo, if you're feeling a little... um, shall we say, 'stimulated', the following games all have copious amounts of virtual intercourse. Videogame bonking may not be particularly highbrow, with the act often portrayed as the equivalent of knocking a Barbie and Ken together, but hey, points for effort. Have a cold shower on standby: these are the best PC sex games around.

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Here's what The Witcher 3 would look like on a PS1

Remember that video clip posted late last year which gave us a really good idea of what Cyberpunk would look like as a PlayStation 1 game, bugs and all? Well, its creator Anders Lundbjörk has been exploring what another one of CD Project Red's RPG games might be like if given a PS1-style 'demake', so now we know what The Witcher 3 - bathtub and all - might look like à la 1995. It's NSFW, folks. Well, we think so, anyway.

As you can see in the brief demake-style clip below, PS1 Geralt's splish-sploshing in a Kaer Morhen tub is quite a lot lower res than the 2015 open-world game's opening scene. A fire crackles in its chunky grate, as the low-poly witcher sticks his legs out of the wooden tub. We say 'legs' - I mean, they're great big stalks of square-ish meat, really, with shadows denoting his toes and muscles - but the whole thing's just delightfully retro and really well done.

The familiar scene unfolds - for a bit, anyway. In the PS1 game, Geralt decides to try Yennefer's patience by drawing a Gwent card of his other love, Triss, calling her his "waifu". Yennefer doesn't take well to this and, well, you can see for yourself below.

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Five games that can teach us something about love

The Christmas holidays are over, we have dragged our way through the January blues, and now we are here in February - the month with the most romantic holiday of the year, Valentine's Day.

It's a time to reflect on our affections: who do you love? Do they love you back? How will you express your feelings? Can you really step away from Apex Legends for a whole evening in order to spend time with another, actual human? Important questions all.

Many people will, indeed, ransack department stores in search of the perfect present to woo their partners, or call a fancy restaurant to secure a table for two with the one they love. But what about spending some time with your other love - you know, videogames? There's no need to start snogging your PC (though we won't judge you if that's your thing) but you should join us as take a look at what games can teach us about love, romance, and relationships. Turns out it's quite a lot.

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This Witcher 3 mod gives Geralt a Star Wars lightsaber

The Witcher 3 and Star Wars. Geralt and Luke Skywalker. The Continent and a galaxy far, far away. They're not combinations you'd think would slot together all that naturally but, boy, can they ever. A modder has proved a Witcher-Star Wars mash-up can be a glorious thing by putting an iconic new weapon in the RPG game's hero's hands - a lightsaber (I can hear your shrieks of 'Yes!' from here).

Milckywayy's 'Star Wars Lightsaber' mod for CD Projekt Red's 2015 open-world game does exactly what that name implies - it puts that most iconic of melee weapons, the laser sword first introduced to world way back in 1977, in Geralt the monster slayer's capable hands. The good news is it comes in a range of colours, which you can choose and download from the mod's associated optional files, such as the classics - blue (the default), green, red, and even Mace Windu-style purple - and some jazzy others, like orange, yellow, and white.

It's also available to grab as both of Geralt's swords - so, in theory, you could run around with two mix-and-match lightsabers as your silver and steel weapons. As you can see in the showcase clip below, you can also opt to grab lightsaber sound effects for the mod. After all, what is a lightsaber without that signature hum, swoosh, and sizzle? Nothing, that's what.

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