CD Projekt Red's The Witcher video game series exploded the popularity of Andrej Sapkowski's overall dark-fantasy epic franchise with the third game, proving to be the catalyst for expanding into modern live-action TV on Netflix. Wild Hunt is a game that's shown how consistently reliable it is in gaining new fans even six years after launch, and that may entice players to dig into the game series' roots in the prior two games.
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was released over eight years ago on PC and Xbox 360 and shows its age today, but still released to a strong critical reception. Thanks to the PC gaming and modding community, there is a strong selection of mods that help improve The Witcher 2's experience to be more palatable in 2021.
Better Texture Environment
One of the first things to look for improvement within aging PC games is the visuals. The Witcher 2 is a solid-looking game for the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 generation, but it understandably could use a good facelift graphically, though, not as much of an upgrade the original The Witcher graphics mods do for it.
Nevertheless, the Better Texture Environment mod by Jimmy High is a great overhaul to give the game an "unofficial remaster" feel to it in the modern day. Much like the first game, the textures of The Witcher 2 tend to look worse on more modern hardware when pushed to upscale (especially) to resolutions above 1080p like 1440p and 4K. This mod makes hundreds of new in-game textures that are clearer and more detailed.
Enhanced Mod Compilation
As the name suggests, the Enhanced Mod Compilation by QuietusPlus applies an assortment of different fixes and adjustments to gameplay features. It's one of the best examples of what a quality-of-life mod should do, like what Skyrim mods have done for the game in 2021, as it implements mechanics like highlighting nearby items that can be looted and enables auto-looting.
Perhaps even better, it also reduces item weight to avoid becoming over-encumbered. It's an interesting item management feature on paper, but it can easily become a nuisance rather than engaging. It also tags items to easily see what category they belong to (potions, mutagens, etc.) and more detailed descriptions of Geralt's unlockable abilities to get a much better sense of what they do before spending points.
Mutagenology
Mutagens in The Witcher games are biological agents that, when equipped, offer a passive stat buff to Geralt. They're part of the games' crafting element, as--in addition to being loot drops from enemies--they can be created as a byproduct of alchemy. Kamilius' Mutagenology mod adds an additional mechanic to how mutagens are created to make getting stronger versions more accessible.
Before, it was strongly suggested that players avoid using the weaker mutagens due to the process being irreversible, rendering them somewhat useless. With this mod, it lets players combine a few weaker mutagens to create on stronger one. As the creator says as an example, three Minor Mutagens of Power will create a single Mutagen of Power. This requires additional ingredients to balance things away from being too easy.
Better Combat
Older RPGs in particular tend to suffer in the combat department as the years go by. With the growth in technological sophistication and experience, The Witcher 2 doesn't take hits as hard as the original, but Lautreamont's Better Combat makes some needed adjustments from the vanilla version of CD Projekt Red's game. The upcoming The Witcher 3 remaster should also get an adjustment, and even mods for its predecessor like this are a good foundation of what can be done by addressing things from power balance to difficulty scaling.
The Witcher 2 was guilty of having some surprising difficulty spikes, and one of the things Better Combat does is smooth out the difficulty curve to feel natural rather than daunting. Plus, it makes various combat builds more viable by doing things like balancing damage output from Signs to have noticeable advantages/disadvantages from each other.
Better Shop Sale Prices
A system of how much the in-game merchants will buy from you and sell to you isn't uncommon to RPGs. It's unsurprising given its age, but the vanilla system in the game was stingy toward Geralt. On top of the difficulty spikes, it may not be something that makes players feel immersed in the world and instead become an inconvenience--similarly to the item weight mechanics.
Thankfully, the straightforward, but nonetheless welcome, Better Shop Sale Prices mod by XULTRAX tweaks the rates Geralt will benefit from. It changes the ratio up from 1:25 to 1:5. The modder specifically points this mod out as being useful for the harder difficulty options but should be a fine experience on any level.
Dynamic HUD
One of the nice QOL mods of The Witcher 3 was how the heads-up-display dynamically faded in and out whenever Geralt went in and out of combat. It was a great element of the game and that helped execute immersion well, which is important for a sprawling dark-fantasy world.
That's why Presskohle's Dynamic HUD mod is something for fans coming off of The Witcher 3 to feel more at home. It does for The Witcher 2 essentially what's in the third game, and still allows players to access any of the usual HUD information by opening the quick menu.
Extra Talents Per LV
Another contributor to The Witcher 2's unnecessary difficulty spikes is how few talent points Geralt gets per level-up. The game can throw some surprisingly tough standard enemies early, and being so restricted to what and how many skills players can focus on can be frustrating.
This makes the Extra Talents Per LV mod by kalpa2004 another QOL change that's small in terms of the scope of what's altered, but profound for an engaging modern experience--especially so for new players used to modern mods for The Witcher 3. The vanilla game will only give Geralt 35 talent points after reaching the level cap, yet there are 102 total skills that can be unlocked. This will be a crucial mod for those looking for a more creative, less restricted experience when it comes to combat builds.
Complete Equipment Overhaul
The Complete Equipment Overhaul by Kindo is another tool for smoothening out the vanilla difficulty curve of The Witcher 2. While there are occasional spikes, the difficulty starts to decrease, which is where this mod comes in to keep a stronger balance of retaining challenge in places where it seems to drop off too much.
This mod does so by altering the stats of every equipable item in-game, which helps to create a more "even-paced difficulty" in the game's combat sequences from start to finish. This typically means a combination of taking down raw damage output ratings but adding more potential bonus effects and raising the stat boosts provided by items like trophies and mutagens.
The Witcher 2 Tweaker
Oddly enough, despite being a PC game as well as a console game, The Witcher 2 has a surprisingly limited menu for altering the game's performance and graphical settings. Installing The Witcher 2 Tweaker is required if players want to adjust any of the game's advanced graphics settings.
Being able to tinker with games like this is one of the major boons for gaming on PC, so many players will see this as a must-have mod. It also has a convenient feature for exporting and importing custom settings, letting players easily use community uploaded settings to choose their optimal way to play according to their PC's hardware and personal preference--though, hardware shouldn't be an issue for many to run this game.
Radovid Persuasion Fix
Tgirgis' Radovid Persuasion Fix is a small bug fix, but one that players will likely want to install if they don't want anything unforeseen to impede on their dialogue options. Since it's incredibly unlikely anyone playing The Witcher 2 isn't playing the Enhanced Edition of the game, there's a bug by default that prevents Radovid from successfully being persuaded at a point in the story.
Some may not mind, but it's another "small but welcome" band-aid. It applies a simple fix by changing the success rate value for persuading him; in this case, going up from -1 (impossible) to 1 (likely).