The Witcher 3: Eternal Hunt is the revamp mod you didn’t know you needed

The Witcher 3 may not be the go-to mainstream RPG anymore, now that Baldur’s Gate 3 has that title, but if you’re keen on modding, now may be the time to jump back in. The new Eternal Hunt mod offers an excellent excuse to do just that.

The Witcher 3 has a decent modding scene, though it still falls behind some of the most-moddable games from Bethesda and the like. It remains to be seen whether the community will pick up CD Projekt Red’s flagship fantasy ARPG after its official modding tools come out later this year. Yet, that’s not to say that there aren’t any quality mods available for The Witcher 3 at all.

The Witcher 3: Eternal Hunt is, in fact, possibly the best mod the game has received yet, and it builds upon the core gameplay experience of the title in virtually every way. It adds stealth, for goodness’ sake, and it lets you turn Geralt into a frog.

What is The Witcher 3: Eternal Hunt?

Certainly, the creator of The Witcher 3: Eternal Hunt, apokryphos, does warn you right off the bat that their mod is a fairly comprehensive beast. “One mod to rule them all and in darkness bind them,” does the description promise, loftily. In truth, however, Eternal Hunt is even bigger than it might seem after reading through its lengthy Nexus Mods page. “Its features number in the several hundreds,” promises apokryphos. They are, most certainly, correct.

Having spent some time playing Eternal Hunt and interacting with its settings menu, yours truly is still completely at odds with attempting to describe everything that the mod revamps, changes, or simply outright improves about The Witcher 3. If you’re not keen on fiddling with settings, it’s not something I’d necessarily recommend, but Eternal Hunt is a dream come true in most ways.

The Witcher 3: Eternal Hunt comes with all of the following:

• A reworked combat system with all-new animations
• Over 100 new weapons, armor sets, and other gear
• Eating and drinking animations
• Unique Witcher school animations and movesets (triggered by equipping full sets of Witcher school gear)
• Reworked stamina and targeting systems
• A new parry system
• Sneaking
• Improved AI
• Melee Rage feature for Geralt
• A wealth of all-new random and world encounters
• Reworked blood and gore
• New weather conditions
• Wearable cloaks, hoods, and masks
• Visible equipped gear
• More quality-of-life features than one could shake a silver sword at

This, note, is a wholly inexhaustive list. The mod also allows you to, for example, entirely ignore Gwent (why would you do that?). You can also turn off the baseline item durability and weight management systems, should you find those annoying.

Eternal Hunt adds more content, but it also changes most gameplay systems

On top of all of the goodies listed in the section prior, the underlying gameplay loop changes and additions featured as part of The Witcher 3: Eternal Hunt are simply too numerous and exhaustive to keep track of. All of it is managed via the in-game mod menu, keep in mind, so it’s easy enough to tweak things according to your taste.

For example, Geralt can now sneak around enemies, if he so desires. He can also discover and use unique weapons, which grant him effects and abilities he never had access to in the base game. Augmented Zirael, for example, gives Geralt some of Ciri’s abilities, allowing him to zip around the battlefield just as his adoptive daughter usually does. Finding the Gharasham Blood Ring, on the other hand, lets Geralt turn into a higher vampire to dish out punishment. It’s a good thing, too, because Geralt is now also stalked by vicious assassin creatures, whose ranks include Assassins of the Profaned Ichor, who wield Elder Blood abilities themselves.

It’s a downright ridiculous feature-set that will make any fan of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt reach for that sweet, shiny ‘Install’ button once again, and it’s bound to keep you busy for a good long while. The installation of Eternal Hunt is somewhat tricky if you’re not used to The Witcher 3‘s modding systems, but following apokryphos’ instructions to the letter should do away with any potential problems.