Just in time for pre-Songs of the Past DLC refreshers, Witcher 3 modders have restored a cut menu which lets you watch story recaps at any time

Four years and a "showstopping bug" after first discovering this work CD Projekt Red left out

Remember those little 'last time on The Witcher 3' recaps CD Projekt Red have Dandelion narrate if you load up a save or fast travel to a new section of the map midway through the RPG's main story? Well, it turns out the studio cut out a menu that'd have allowed you to go back and watch any of these helpful reminders of what Gerry from the River was up to at any time, much in the same way you can pop to the character biographies if you've forgotten who someone important is or how Geralt upset them years ago during one of his paperback adventures.

Now, modders have managed to restore said menu, creating an ideal way to quickly remind yourself of TW3's tale ahead of next year's Songs of the Past expansion, assuming you're not up for another playthrough.

The restored recap video menu - labelled 'Events' in-game, but dubbed 'Storybook' by its restorer - lives in the glossary section of The Witcher 3's main menu, next to the bestiary. "This panel was originally created by CDPR and leftover unfinished in the game files ever since the launch of the game in 2015 making this a cut content restoration," wrote modder Glassfish777, who's brought it back. "The panel was left unfinished so I took the liberty of bringing it up to the standards and style of the current GUI and fixing/adding new functionality like skipping, subtitles, and automatic music fadeout."

Later in the description, they revealed that this cut menu was actually first discovered in the game's files in 2022, with a modder going by Fabian (or Tinnaib) having tried to restore it to the game back then, but had their progress halted by a "showstopping bug" which could be solved using the modding tools available at the time. "The release of the UI flash sources with RedKit in 2024 made fixing the bug and polishing up the panel to release standard significantly easier, making this release possible," glassfish777 wrote. "So, special shout-out to Fabian for originally starting this project and I'm glad I was able to finish what he started."

Scrolling through the menu itself, you'll find clips recapping the likes of Ciri's run in with the crones or Geralt's arrival in Novigrad once you've completed the corresponding bit of the main story. Each has a description and title written by CD Projekt Red, which the studio had even gone as far as localising into different languages. "Almost every video has a second stage to it that only unlocks after you've progressed the story a little more after unlocking the first section," the modder explained. "The second stage is automatically appended to the first stage so you don't actually have to manually select it. New/updated videos are marked with a star icon. Note that several of these 'second parts' of the videos are actually impossible to see on the loading screens as the second stage of a given video is often unlocked at the same time as the first stage of the next video which the game always prioritises for the loading screens."

If you prefer to keep the recaps in this menu and stop them playing during loading screens like they usually do in the base game, Glassfish777 has also released an optional file which pulls that off. Installation instructions are in the description.

This is far from the only bit of cut content restoration on the go in the Witcher 3 modding scene right now, with one group of modders dubbed The WAR Project busy remaking the plague questline CD Projekt Red ditched prior to release.