Mystery of Steamy Witcher 3 Mod Explained by CDP [UPDATE]
The issue of overly detailed recreation of the anatomy of several female characters in the next-gen The Witcher 3 is making waves. There are many indications that the author of the mod in question was not asked by CD Projekt RED for permission to use it.
Update
Our guesses turned out to be correct. The reason why the Vagina's for Everyone mod was included in the next-gen version of The Witcher 3 without the author's permission, was actually that it was included in another major modification, called HD Monsters Reworked, and it was this mod that CD Projekt RED used. We know this thanks to a statement from the company, published by website Donald.pl [in Polish, translation provided below]:
"To CD PROJEKT RED's knowledge, the textures in question were part of the "HD Monsters Reworked" (HDMR) mod, not the "Vagina's for Everyone" mod. In 2021, at the time of signing the copyright transfer agreement, the author of the HDMR mod confirmed to CDPR that he was its sole author. He granted CD PROJEKT RED the rights to use his work, and in return was mentioned in the game's credits and received compensation. We contacted him and asked for clarification.
Regardless of recent developments, the aforementioned textures will be removed from the game, as we confirmed earlier. We would also like to add that the removal of these elements is not dictated by avoidance of nudity or mature themes, but by the desire to maintain visual consistency across all character models - we never planned to include these textures in the game."
Original message (February 14, 2023)
A few days ago a surprising change was discovered in the next-gen version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which sparked heated discussions in many Internet places. Inquisitive players have discovered that the moor witches and bruxas heve their intimate body parts recreated in astounding detail. The reason for this was that when creating the update, CD Projekt RED took advantage of a number of fan-made modifications, and one of them featured this very change. Now there are many indications that the author of this project did not give his permission to use it at all.
- When creating the update, the folks at CD Projekt RED obtained the mod creators' permission and paid them for the use of their works.
- The intimate body parts found in the next-gen version most likely came from the mod called Vagina's for Everyone. Kotaku contacted its author - a fan by the handle MasterEditor. This one confirmed that it is his project that is responsible for all the confusion, and at the same time informed that he has not been contacted by anyone from CD Projekt RED regarding the use of the mod in the update..
- The whole affair is most likely not due to ill will on the part of the developers. Considering the fact that the developers wanted to get permission from modders and pay them for the use of their works, it's hard to consider that CD Projekt RED decided to skip MasterEditor specifically.
- A much more likely scenario is that another modder used elements from Vagina's for Everyone in his modification and it became part of the update.
Recall that CD Projekt RED informed already that the realistically rendered intimate parts will be removed in one of the next updates.
The next-gen version of The Witcher 3 debuted last December. The refreshed edition of the game is available on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X.
The new version was received quite warmly, although players complained about technical problems, especially poor performance. Developers are currently working on fixes.
