The Witcher 3 isn’t exactly short of stuff to do, but I nonetheless lament that one of its most ambitious questlines never made it into the final game. Not only because it would have delved much more deeply into The Catriona Plague—a disease ravaging Velen that mostly serves as a background event in the final game—but also because it would have brought back The Witcher 2’s best character, the elven rebel smokeshow Iorveth.
Details about this questline emerged back in 2024, courtesy of modders and dataminers Moonknight, Ferroxius, Crygreg, and Glassfish. Not content with simply discovering the details of this quest, however, that same team has set about recreating it in a hugely ambitious mod.
Named The WAR Project, the mod aims to recreate the Catriona Plague questline in the form of a 10-hour, 12 quest expansion based upon the datamined info discovered a couple of years back. Details were shared by YouTuber and The Witcher 3 specialist xLetalis, who is also assisting with the mod’s production.
While the main attraction for me is Iorveth’s return, the mod also reintroduces and/or expands upon several other characters in The Witcher 3. This includes a proper romance between Geralt and Ves, plus extra demonic shenanigans from Gaunter O’ Dimm, the primary antagonist of Hearts of Stone who CD Projekt originally planned to introduce in this quest. O’ Dimm’s return also heralds the arrival of new demonic enemies for Geralt to chop up, alongside specialist Nilfgaardian soldiers with rad-looking vulture masks.
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Now, ambitious mods like this crop up online all the time, but few actually make it to release. However, the team is composed of veteran Witcher 3 modders, with Moonknight and Glassfish having contributed to the Brothers in Arms mod that restores a darker ending to the Hearts of Stone expansion. They also say that the mod is 25% complete with things like Geralt’s romance with Ves already implemented (a demo is available on Nexus Mods).
One major component the mod currently lacks is voice acting, as the original voice lines for these quests are sadly lost to time. Hence, the team is currently casting for numerous roles in both English and Polish languages, including ol’ Geraldo Riviera himself. If you think you can match the gravelly tones of Doug Cockle (challenge level: impossible), you can sign up for auditions via the mod’s Discord.
The War Project is due to release in February 2027. That seems a teensy bit optimistic to me, given the scope of the mod and the fact it’s only a quarter done. Nonetheless, I am confident that this will see the light of day, and am excited to be reunited with my beautiful Iorveth whenever The War Project finally marches out of camp.
