Released in 2011, The Witcher 2 is a great sequel to a lackluster first installment. It is one of the top action RPGs of the last generation. Players adore the game for its original story and unique gameplay. On top of that, the developers of the game CD Projekt Red are loved by fans for their anti-DRM and no microtransactions approach as well.
It has been nine years since the release of The Witcher 2, which means there are many creative mods available on the internet that add to the game experience. And some of them are a must for the players who are looking to replay this masterpiece.
Updated March 31, 2021 by Ritwik Mitra: The Witcher 2 ended up being an extremely important game for CD Projekt Red, allowing them to form the building blocks for an insanely successful sequel that would shatter all records and establish itself as one of the most popular video game titles of all time. For people who want to experience the history of The Witcher games by playing the second game without having to deal with any unnecessary frustrations, here are the best mods to augment the overall experience.
15 Better Texture Environment
Even though The Witcher 2 was definitely quite impressive on a graphical level for its time, there's no denying the fact that this game definitely shows its age now... and not everything is all that pretty.
Thankfully, with the Better Texture Environments mod, the muddy and dated textures present in the game are overhauled significantly and allow for greater visual fidelity across the board.
14 Extra Talents Per Lv
One thing that might irk some people about The Witcher 2 is the fact that there are only 34 talent points that can be attained at the max level... even though there are a total of 102 skills that can be unlocked in total.
With this mod, players can now finally turn this amnesiac Witcher into one of the most powerful combatants around, allowing him to decimate foes as he attains new levels of power.
13 Extreme Quality Flora
The vegetation of The Witcher 2 might be quite impressive in its own right... but there's no denying the fact that the flora in far-off regions ends up looking rather lackluster in comparison. This is because the game renders this flora at lower resolutions and quality further off in the distance. This was mainly done to account for system limitations at the time... but gaming hardware has progressed a long way since then.
With the Extreme Quality Flora mod, this vegetation will be rendered at a high quality regardless of the distance, improving the visuals of the game considerably.
12 Dark Items For All Difficulty Levels
While Dark Mode can be a great challenge for anyone who wants a hardcore experience with The Witcher 2, one can't deny that the combat of this game isn't really all that fair in the first place. So, the frustration of having to deal with starting a new game upon death is something that's better off avoided.
However, what might annoy some people is that Dark Mode features some unique armor sets and weapons of its own that aren't present in other difficulties. To unlock these items for use in a normal game, the only viable course of action to be taken is to download this mod, which allows the player to access these Dark items regardless of the difficulty curve.
11 Market Price Mod
The disparity between the purchase and sale prices of items in The Witcher 2 is a whopping 24:1, which can be quite harsh indeed for most players.
With the Market Price mod, this ratio is lessened to a more lenient 5:1 instead, which is reminiscent of the market prices in the first Witcher title.
10 Witcher 1 Save File
Similar to another RPG game from 2007 known as Mass Effect, The Witcher 1 decisions and outcomes directly impact its sequel. That is why this save file is the first add-on for players trying to start a reasonably neutral path in The Witcher 2.
The save file contains a completed 1st game, with no enhancements and all the side missions finished. The list of all the decisions made, current armor and weapons as well as a mission-wise dissection is available on the mod page.
9 Panel Tweaks
Panel Tweaks is a mod that helps improve the game's user interface by adding details. This mod is suitable for players who want more information to appear while doing multiple different tasks. The mod adds and improves UI panels like crafting component counter, inventory filters, sorting options, improved alchemy, pocket item counter, and much more.
While the old menus were not bad and gave the players almost everything they could ask for, this mod gives The Witcher 2's user interface a much-deserved depth.
8 Hair Texture Replacement
This mod is a gift for the lovers of aesthetics, on the surface, it is a straightforward texture replacement, but the only goal of this mod is to give the players the return of the white wolf. Witcher 2 is a good game, it has much improved textures, character models, but there is one thing missing.
The hair in the game is no longer the blooming white hair from the first game. They are instead grey and much darker in tone. There is a reason Geralt is known as the white wolf, and he would not be the same without the sparkling white man-fur on his head.
7 HUDTweaks
This objective of this mod is to improve the HUD of The Witcher 2, a poorly executed HUD interface can make or break a game in a matter of minutes, and while The Witcher 2 HUD is not wrong, it is outdated based on current-gen standards.
The HUDTweaks adds four main changes to the original game, it adds a minimap direction pointer, a crosshair during combat mode, a smaller target lock-on, and an improved quick menu. All of these factors are directly responsible for a polished game experience.
6 Weightless Recipes And Schematics Plus
The Witcher 2, even with a few of its flaws, is close to a perfect game. Everything in it is built with research. The clothing items fit the era, the weapons feel like they are a part of the world, almost everything is accurate to the books, except the weight of things, Especially recipes.
It is bizarre how the heavier items like books weigh close to nothing, and things made of a single paper weigh 100g. This mod fixes that problem, it adds the weight to books and takes them off the items that don't need it. This mod is for the players looking for an incredibly realistic Witcher 2 experience.
5 Vivid Eyes
Another mod for players looking to make their game experience authentic to the lore. Vivid Eyes updates the eyes of Geralt and makes him look close to how his appearance is in the books. With glowy predator eyes, Geralt feels much more predator-like than he was in the original game.
This mod helps sell the fact that Geralt of Rivia is a monster-killing legendary witcher. With over 10k downloads, this is one of the mods that do not hamper the feel of the original game, just add to it.
4 Potion Oil Duration and Crafting Fee Tweaks
The Witcher 2 has an exciting potion crafting system, that is very much integral to the overall game experience. For some players, however, this potion crafting gamble isn't worth the time or money, as the costs and duration of these potions are variable. Many players sort down to playing the game with a hack and slash style, without using many potions.
This mod helps in fixing that. With the mod enabled, players can now have a much longer effect duration and a minimal price to pay for all that experience.
3 Complete Equipment Overhaul
CEO Complete Equipment Overhaul is one of the much-needed miscellaneous mods for The Witcher 2.
The mod changes the stats for almost all the times in-game, to make the game a much more balanced experience. The difficulty level in the game has always varied, especially going down as players progressed, CEO mod makes sure everything stays even throughout the playthrough. By adding this mod to the game, players can feel the same intensity they felt in the first few levels.
2 Better Combat
Better Combat is another must-have add-on for the game, and it does the same thing the Complete Equipment Overhaul mod did, except this mod is specific to the combat in the game. With this mod, players can make the combat in The Witcher 2 stable.
The mod attempts to fix the lack of stability in build paths and abilities, so almost every way to play the game feels superior. Better Combat is best for players who want to explore other playstyles that were previously weaker.
1 Pirouette Dodge
The dodge animation in The Witcher 2 is pretty good, but here is a mod that lets you change it. Because why not. For the players looking to replay, this is the mod that you get with your eyes closed. What is more deadly, a Geralt that can dodge roll or a White Wolf that can Pirouette Dodge, the enemies like a tornado. Avoiding enemies was just cool, with this mod, it's ice cold. Gone are the days of avoiding enemies without style. It's time to embarrass them.