The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt News

Star Wars effects studio is working on The Witcher Season 2

For every riveting sword fight and majestic fireball thrown during the first season of Netflix's The Witcher, there was a Hedgehog Man, or something else that looked perhaps a touch slapdash. Fans eager for the second season of The Witcher should be pleased to learn that Industrial Light and Magic, George Lucas' legendary visual effects studio, is contributing to the production of season two.

That doesn't mean we'll be seeing X-wings and TIE fighters duking it out over the forests of Nilfgaard or anything, although ILM has been key to the visuals in just about every major Star Wars film. The studio has also done work for effects-heavy non-Star Wars blockbusters including Jurassic Park, Men in Black, the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Pacific Rim, and countless others.

As Redanian Intelligence reports, the studio has won a whopping 16 Academy Awards for its work in visual effects, and the range of titles and settings it's worked on is broad - working in the grim fantasy setting of The Witcher should be no problem at all.

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Why The Witcher 3 makes me nervous for Cyberpunk 2077

The Cyberpunk 2077 release date isn't even here, and it's already mightily tempting to compare The Witcher 3 to its retro-futurist 'successor'. CD Projekt Red's responsible for one of the best RPG games this planet's seen since the Conjunction of the Spheres, and it could be behind another come November. The Witcher 3 has arguably set the benchmark for what a modern open-world role-player should be, and CP2077 looks set to snatch the baton and keep on running with it, based on what we've seen and heard so far, at least.

On one hand, drawing a direct comparison might not be entirely fair. It's a little reductive to equate the two simply because they share a developer, and from snapshots of Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay revealed so far, there are plenty of meaningful distinctions. There's the obvious: Cyberpunk's based on a tabletop universe about a dystopian city, transhumanism, and gang warfare. It's also got first-person perspective; you play a mercenary hacker called V; Keanu Reeves is in it.

Cyberpunk 2077's character customisation, combat, mission structure, and tone will differ markedly to the studio's last big hitter in the RPG space. But, it's inescapably still in that space, and forged with CDPR's lens, no less. That got me thinking. I'm a huge fan of The Witcher 3, not just because it's the epitome of its genre, but because it's an experience that really means something to me; one I often ruminate on when I'm not playing.

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This Witcher 3 mod lets Yennefer barge her way into Geralt's sex scenes

Depending on how you play him, Geralt of The Witcher 3 gets about. It seems many of the sorceresses and female folk of the RPG game's sprawling open world simply can't resist the monster slayer's rugged charms, and there are plenty of opportunities for steamy scenes. However, there's now a way to chart a more monogamous path through the game, thanks to a mod that ejects his various lovers from their sex scenes and pops Yennefer into their place.

Julia Barcelos's 'Swap main romances to Yennefer' mod boots out the big names from Geralt's various quest-related romps over the course of the game, such as Yen's primary rival for the Witcher's affections, Triss Merigold. It also ejects Skelliger Jutta an Dimun, sorceress Keira Metz, and Madame Sasha, as well as Shani from the open-world game's Hearts of Stone expansion and Syanna from the Blood and Wine expansion - all in favour of Geralt's true love, Yen, instead. Yeah, I said it.

The modder says that the mod replaces character models with Yennefer in quest-related romantic encounters only, so any grubby trips Geralt takes to a brothel will appear as normal, and there's no nudity, either - Yen sports her undies, instead.

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Watch The Witcher's Henry Cavill build his new gaming PC

It's no secret at this point that Henry Cavill, who starred as Geralt of Rivia in Netflix's adaptation of The Witcher, is a gamer - he's told interviewers about his preference for the PC, that he "lived and breathed" the Witcher games to prep for his role in the TV show, and he loves Total War so much that Creative Assembly put him in The Warden and The Paunch DLC for Total War: Warhammer 2. Now he's finally had a bit of time to build himself the gaming PC of his dreams.

Cavill posted a video of his build to his Instagram, and it shows a good bit of the process. It's also extremely relatable - Cavill may be an expert with a bastard sword now, but it takes him a couple tries to get everything assembled correctly in his new PC.

He's clearly sprung for quality parts, though: Cavill's chosen an AMD Ryzen 9 processor (perhaps the best CPU for gaming) and an Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti GPU to build his system around. The Butcher of Blaviken likes to keep things cool, too - he's picked up a swish-looking NZXT Kraken Z73 liquid cooler for his CPU.

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This The Witcher 3 mod turns the game into its original E3 style demo

As is to be expected, when games are demonstrated at shows like E3, there are often more tweaks and tinkerings to come before release dates roll around, meaning there can be differences between what you see and the final version. However, it seems some The Witcher 3 fans are keen to play the game as it originally appeared pre-launch. A popular new "E3 inspired gameplay mod" turns back the clock on one of the best RPG games - heck, best PC games - of all time, giving players a flavour of its pre-launch build in-game.

The "E3IG" mod by creator DreLL47 aims to "get as close to E3 demo as possible", according to its page at Nexus, which references the below 37 minute-long gameplay clip shown in 2014, a year before the open-world game's launch. While the game is, for the most part, similar to what you'll be used to playing in the final version, there are some differences in how Geralt moves, both in and out of combat.

To recreate the original footage's as closely as possible, the modder says, they've "reworked some vanilla animations to imitate E3 as much as I could".

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