The Witcher 3 Removes ‘Unauthorised’ Realistic Nudity

There are wild scenes over in the world of The Witcher right now, as developer CD Projekt Red has been called out for using someone else's work to add "realistic" female genitalia to the new-gen version of The Witcher 3.

Yes, you read that right. Hyper-realistic v*ginas have become commonplace in the 2022 re-release of the 2015 game. Unfortunately, that's not the weirdest part of the story.

Why Is The Witcher 3 In Trouble For Realistic Nudity?

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Considering there have been eight years since Geralt rode into town on Roach for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, you can imagine graphics have come a long way. Still, it's a relatively small subsect bothered about the realism of the pixels between someone's legs... or so we thought.

The new-gen release of The Witcher 3 dialled up the nudity, with the Crones of Crookback Bog and Blood and Wine expansion's vampiric bruxae having their pubic areas getting an overhaul. When this was shared to Reddit (NSFW), players rightly questioned what was going on.

There were "complaints" that the 2015 game had a Barbie doll appearance, leading to the "visible v*ginas and pubic hair" mod getting over 188,000 downloads.

Kotaku spotted that this must be some of the "fully integrated fan-made mods including 4K textures and models" that CDPR hyped ahead of the game's release, and after reaching out, got a statement from the developer.

It turns out the realistic genitalia was a mistake, with a statement explaining: "Merging everything together was a complex process and the textures in question are an unintended result present in the release version. This is something we are working to address."

Modder Thinks CDPR Used Their Work

The story has taken another twist, though. According to Kotaku (again), it could be down to the "V*ginas for Everyone" Nexus Mods mod for The Witcher 3 - going all the way back to the game's original release on PC.

The mood adds realistic anatomy and pubic hair to female NPCs, which also includes those who aren't supposed to have full-frontal nudity in-game. The site spoke to the OG modder to ask whether this was one of the many fan creations CDPR boasted about adding to the next-gen update.

The mod has two different pubic hair options, but the "landing strip" variation seen in the new-gen game looks almost identical to the Nexus Mods version. Responding to Kotaku's DM, the original modder is adamant CDPR "used [their] mod" but "[they] didn’t know about it, nor did they ask [them] for permission."

While we're not sure how the modder can prove CDPR used their work, the fact The Witcher 3 confirms it used "community-sourced" mods and is working to address it as an unintentional misstep, it looks like we've got to the bottom of those modded merkins.