CD Projekt Red’s commitment to removing vulva textures from The Witcher 3 is “not intended as a statement against nudity or mature themes” it said.
The next-gen update for The Witcher 3 accidentally included realistic genitals for female monsters, which were not part of the original game.
Since stating it is “working to address” the inclusion after incorporating various fan mods into the update, CD Projekt Red has identified the source of the textures.
The textures were thought to be from the mod Vaginas for Everyone, as reported Kotaku, but this was not the case.
In a statement to Eurogamer, a CD Projekt Red spokesperson said: “As was understood by CD Projekt Red until very recently, the vulva textures in question were a part of the ‘HD Monsters Reworked’ (HDMR) mod, not the ‘Vaginas for Everyone’ mod.
“In 2021, at the time of signing the copyright transfer agreement, the HDMR mod author confirmed to CDPR that they were the sole author of the mod in question. The HDMR mod author granted CD Projekt Red rights to use the mod and was credited and compensated for their work. We have contacted the HDMR mod author with questions for clarification.”
Further, the company has made its intention behind removing the textures clear: visual coherence.
“Regardless of this recent development, we remain committed to removing these textures from the game, as we previously confirmed,” the statement continued.
“We want to also add that the removal of these elements is not intended as a statement against nudity or mature themes, but rather an attempt to maintain visual coherence across all character models – including these textures in the game was not something we planned from the start.”
CDPR previously explained the next-gen update includes “several community-sourced mods”.
“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,” said a CDPR spokesperson.
For more on the recent patch and its performance tweaks, check out the analysis from Digital Foundry.
