Fancy a Witcher 3 10th anniversary playthrough with extra “classic RPG feel”? Well, this new mod gives it a totally revamped Witcher 1-style skill system

In case you missed it, The Witcher 3 is now a decade old. We’re all knee-deep in replays of old games right now, but if all the TW3 anniversary chat has you thinking about firing it up again, a new mod looks like it’ll offer an interesting twist for folks looking forward to The Witcher Remake.

After all, how best to switcher up your Witcher experience than swapping one Witcher skill system for a different Witcher skill system from an older Witcher game. That way, you can see Witcher is better. All right, I’ll stop mucking about.

The mod is Gerwant30’s Witcher 1 talent trees remake for The Witcher 3, with its creator having previously scored second place on one of CD Projekt’s REDkit modding contests with a work that lets you explore a bit of Cintra.

Now, as part of their ongoing “Tales of the Witcher” project, they’ve had a go at adding their own version of first Witcher game’s skill system into TW3, with the goal of giving you “a lot more control” over Geralt’s development via “13 new talent trees and over 200 new skills”. “This mod attempts to recreate that feeling and philosophy within The Witcher 3,” Gerwant30 explained, “replacing the standard skill trees with a more layered and, hopefully, rewarding progression system.”

As you can see in the showcase video above, the mod sees you work up and earn bronze, silver, and gold talents across trees dedicated to the likes of strength and dexterity as you level up. You’ll start off by earning bronzes early-game, then gradually move on the silvers and golds as you get more proficient and gradually morph into a master witcher.

There are four main skill trees including the two mentioned earlier, each with 17 skills, but that’s far from it. The five Witcher signs each have their own 18 skill strong tree “allowing for deep specialization”, and there are four combat skill trees aimed at “strong” and “fast” attacks with your steel and silver blades.

“Your power comes mostly from how you build your character,” the modder writes, “Skills, talents, and preparation define your strength, equipment statistics are less important.” Certainly a lot to tweak if you’re a fan of in-depth build engineering, though it’s worth noting that this being a beta, a fair amount of the skills and features are still very much a work-in-progress.

It’s also worth noting that Gerwant30’s designed the mod to work exclusively with “a fresh new game in the base version of The Witcher 3 only”, with them being very clear that existing saves and standalone playthroughs of the Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine DLC won’t work as intended. They also intend for it to be used with another mod, SkylineR390’s ‘Alchemy’, so you’ll need to grab that if you fancy giving this skill tree mod a go.

PsychoCaki’s ‘SCAAR’ and a camera mod like TheMenxceX and ElementaryLewis’ ‘Immersive Camera for Next Gen’ are also on Gerwant30’s recommended list.

Did you prefer the first Witcher game’s more old-school approach to skills, or is how TW3 does things second nature at this point and not something you’d want to tweak? Let us know below!