CD Projekt RED is known for its share of iconic role-playing games, including the Witcher franchise and Cyberpunk 2077. One feature that the developer has yet to implement into its RPGs, however, is online multiplayer. This is where one community modder has taken over, with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt receiving an unofficial online mode to play together with friends on PC.
Simply dubbed Witcher Online and made by the modder "rejuvenate," the user-made addon lets players explore the lands of The Witcher 3 together. All equipment, as well as movement and combat actions, are fully synchronized to all players inside the server, with custom emotes (using debug console commands) available to crudely communicate with each other.
While all players in a server are usually Geralt clones, Witcher Online is also compatible with the Custom Player Characters mod to customize each player"s avatar. This gives options to join servers as a Witcher, sorcerer, or any NPC with custom appearances.
Witcher Online also works with the Chill Out mod, letting online players interact with specific spots in the world map to do activities together like fishing, shaving, tree chopping, relaxing in taverns, and more.
Unfortunately, elements like enemies are not synced across players, so the questlines cannot be played in co-op. Players will still be running into each other as they go on their own adventures. Playing the card game Gwent against each other is another missing feature. "The mod just renders the players at their given location for each other and syncs the current animations they are performing," explains rejuvenate.
Outside of support questions, the mod page"s discussion section is ablaze with players asking for more features and syncing for more entities. The modder confirmed that most of these requests will not be possible, saying that "Horse sync may come in the future, but enemies, time of day, bosses... etc is never going to be added. It will cause too many problems."
Interested players will need to do some work before playing The Witcher 3 online, with both the client and the server needing setup. A complete guide written by the mod maker can be found here. The mod will work across Steam, GOG, and Epic Games Store versions.