You can now play The Witcher 3's cut boat races thanks to modders

rockpapershotgun.com:

Have I ever bellowed breathlessly about how much I appreciate modders? If I’ve done it a thousand times, it still isn’t enough. Today’s saintly file tinkerers are MerseyRockoff and glassfish77, who’ve restored a series of boat racing quests in open world RPG The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and made them available in a mod for your sailing pleasure. Cheers, PC Gamer!

While the actual races themselves were created by the modders - “from scratch based on CDPR's writing” - all the writing and audio used was found in the game files. So conversations, characters, journal entries, and even quest board notices all appear in the mod as they would have in the game. You’ll kick off the races at Novigrad, after which you’ll choose to sail for either the city or Redania. There’s four tournaments in all. The Witcher 3’s boats were never particularly exciting, but there’s plenty of conversations between quests to keep things interesting.

This is the latest cut content discovery made since modding tool REDKit’s release. Modders recently found a big chunk of ending on the cutting room floor, including a scene in which Yennefer betrayed the Lodge Of Sorceresses. I’m left wondering if we’ll ever get to see the famous ice skating swordfights that were prototyped but ultimately abandoned, although it doesn’t sound like they got far enough to leave any trace in the files. Book readers will know that violent ice skating isn’t new territory for the series, but the developers ultimately felt that introducing a new system so late in the game was “quite wonky.” Embrace wonkiness, say I. Until then, why not have a glance at our best Witcher 3 mods. At this rate, though, they’ll surely be needing an update soon.