TECH NEWS – One of the expansions for CD Projekt RED‘s game originally had the Polish developers create a darker ending, which we can now take a look at.
Brothers in Arms is a mod for The Witcher 3 that combines bug fixes with restored cut content. It is frequently updated. The last time we checked, a bunch of dialogue had been restored, including a Yennefer romance scene.
The latest update is particularly significant. The long list of changes in version 3.1.0 includes the following note: “Restored a completely new plotline – Shani’s fate during the Hearts of Stone expansion. It features a new optional ending for the expansion.”
The video below shows how this plotline helps explain why Shani returns in the Hearts of Stone expansion. At a certain point in development, her life would have been in danger if she had clashed with the expansion’s villain, Gaunter O’Dimm. The restored scenes use dialogue found in the game files, suggesting the storyline was cut fairly late in development, but everything else is new. It’s impressive how well it all fits together, from the camera angles to the character animations and lip-syncing – it matches the standard of the rest of the game.
That said, the ending in which the local Lucifer kills Shani with lightning doesn’t seem quite right. It’s a rather blunt move, and it can be countered because the specific threat – that there will be no place under the sun where she will be safe – doesn’t extend to the cellar. Does it extend to the rest of the interior of the house? We still prefer the ending we already have.
Fortunately, Brothers in Arms lets you choose what you want to add via an extensive in-game menu, where you can enable or disable various add-ons. The mod is still available on Nexus Mods, but if you use other mods, it’s worth running Script Merger as well, which detects conflicts and allows you to merge them so you don’t run into problems. And with mods, there are usually a few…
Source: PCGamer, Nexus Mods, Nexus Mods
