Game file hierarchy

File structure of the Witcher 3 game

Top-level overview

Well you can just look in you game folder, right... You will find this :

• ARTBOOK
• ARTWORK
• bin
• Blood and Wine extras
• content
• DLC
• Hear of Stone extras
• MANUAL
• MAP
• Mods
• SOUNDTRACK
• WALLPAPERS

This is easy : all necessary directories, for the game to function properly, are in full lower case. The rest is additional content, the "goodies pack". So there are really only two game directories :

• bin - all stuff related to the game engine (RedEngine3) the .exe, the .dlls... this is the most obscure part. Mods generally simply interact with it, nothing more.
• content - all the assets of the game are here. The models, the textures, the animations, the sound, the cinematics, a big part of the logic in the game, including quests... This is mostly where modding efforts happened and are happening, and where your newly-created mod will be stored.

"content" directory

• contentO - the majority of game files are segregated into these main folders for some reason (TODO)
  • bundles
  • dlc - :)
  • engine
  • levels
  • movies - real movie parts, not cutscenes?
  • scripts
  • .arstrings, .w3speech and .cache files those are explained here
• content1
• ...
• content12
• patch0
• patch1
• metadata.store - this is the register of game files