The Witcher 3 Remastered folds in top modder HalkHogan's HD Reworked Project

CD Projekt Red's free Witcher 3 remaster, dropping September 29, includes official work from HalkHogan — the modder behind the massively popular HD Reworked Project. HalkHogan confirmed the collaboration in a pinned post on the mod's Nexus Mods page, noting that HDRP "will no longer be needed" once the remaster is live on PC and consoles.

According to HalkHogan, the rework covers almost all in-game characters, monsters, animals, vegetation, armors, and equipment for Geralt and Roach, plus a large chunk of the environment. The remaster launches alongside the Songs of the Past expansion and is a free update to the base game. This isn't the first time CDPR has brought HalkHogan on board — the modder also contributed to the 2022 next-gen update, which similarly folded in work from four other community creators: Denroth, Teiji25, Chuckcash, and Terg500. As of writing, none of those four have posted anything confirming involvement in the remaster, though the bug fixes they contributed were already baked into the next-gen update and haven't needed updating since.

CD Projekt Red has a track record of compensating modders whose work ends up in official updates — back in 2022 the studio said it "reimbursed" contributors and added them to the game's credits. The same arrangement presumably applies here. For PC players, the main upside is convenience: no need to manually install HDRP to get the visual upgrade. For console players, it's a bigger deal — they can only access this level of texture and model quality when it arrives through official channels like this. The HD Reworked Project has been one of the most-downloaded Witcher 3 mods for years, so rolling it in officially is a meaningful quality-of-life win for the whole playerbase.

The September 29 launch date is confirmed. One caveat worth flagging: the 2022 next-gen update caused significant compatibility headaches for the broader modding scene when it dropped, and a similar disruption is plausible here. Players running heavy mod setups should probably brace for some breakage on day one.