WolvenKit reads and writes the file formats a REDengine game keeps closed

The format knowledge is the actual product

The vision sentence in the README is about formats rather than about an editor. The project is to develop a standalone software which is capable of reading and writing all REDengine file formats, and the WolvenKit application is designed on top of that to simplify and accelerate modding workflows. The origin explains the ambition, because the repository was created to demonstrate how CD Projekt Red's proprietary REDengine reads and writes file formats. That is a research framing, and the project keeps it, stating that the toolkit is made solely for research and educational purposes and that the dev team is in no way responsible for any malfunctions that occur from its use. It is also completely open source, licensed under GPL 3.0, and in no way is it made to generate revenue. The audience is the modding community, and the documentation lives on the wiki at wiki.redmodding.org rather than in the repository.

One engine version per repository, and the split is deliberate

A warning at the top of the README fixes the scope, that this repository focuses on REDengine 4 for Cyberpunk 2077, and for WolvenKit for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt the reader is pointed to a separate repository, WolvenKit-7. The naming makes the division obvious, since the 7 suffix in the sister project corresponds to the older engine generation, and the main repository carries the newer one. For a user this matters practically, because the file formats differ between the two games and a tool built for one will not open the other's assets. The project also ships a Discord server for the Cyberpunk 2077 modding community, and the README asks contributors to open an issue before implementing a feature so that two people do not work on the same thing asynchronously.

The repository is a toolkit, not just an application

The top-level entries show a much larger thing than a single WPF app. There is WolvenKit.App/ for the desktop application, WolvenKit.CLI/ for the command line, WolvenKit.Core/ for shared code, WolvenKit.RED4/ for the engine version specific work, WolvenKit.Modkit/ which is the toolkit for building mods, WolvenKit.Unpacker/ for unpacking archives, WolvenKit.Common/ and WolvenKit.Package/ for shared utilities and packaging, and two further solution files beside the main one, WolvenKit.Tests.sln and WolvenKit.Console.sln, plus a separate WolvenKit.sln, an All.sln that opens everything, and the Tests/ directory at the root. The Modkit and Unpacker are the parts worth noticing, because they are what a modder actually uses to prepare content, while the editor is the part everyone opens first.

Installing it, and the two release channels

The installation starts with the runtime, because WolvenKit requires the latest .NET 10.0 runtime, and the instructions are to go to Microsoft's .NET download page, find the .NET Desktop Runtime 10.0.x section, download the installer for your architecture, and run it. The distinction between the desktop runtime and the base runtime is the one detail to get right, since a WPF application will not start on the base runtime. After that there are two channels. The table lists a nightly package, from the separate WolvenKit-nightly-releases repository, and the stable release, with the workflow status badges for each, the nightly one on a nightly.yml workflow and the stable one on check-only.yml. The artefacts are an installer, WolvenKitSetup-x.x.x.exe, and a portable archive, WolvenKit-x.x.x.x.zip, which you can extract anywhere.

Building from source, and the dependency management style

The build instructions are four steps. Download and install Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition or a higher version, clone the repository, open the solution, All.sln, and build the projects. The presence of All.sln next to three other solution files is worth a note, because it means the repository is meant to be opened as a whole for development while the individual solutions serve the individual deliverables. The build configuration follows the current.NET conventions, with a global.json pinning the SDK, Directory.Build.props for shared properties and Directory.Packages.props for central package version management, which is how a repository with this many projects keeps its dependency versions consistent. There is also a Settings.XamlStyler directory, which is for the XAML formatter, and a Doxyfile_scripting directory, which is for the generated API documentation.

The credits tell you what the project depends on

The credits section is unusually specific about commercial support, and it is useful information for anyone evaluating the tool. JetBrains supplied open source licences for the developers, and Syncfusion supplied an open source licence for the WPF controls used, alongside the Ab3d PowerToys and the Ab3d DXEngine. The ancestor is named too, that an ancestor to this tool was W3Edit, initially developed by Sarcen in 2015 around the time The Witcher 3 first came out, and that after Sarcen stopped working on it a few of the maintainers picked it up and continued from there. The rest of the credit list is the tooling ecosystem the project builds on, with Assimp for 3D formats, the Zenhax and Xentax archives, Lua utilities and converters for The Witcher 3, the TW3 Booster and Converter, VgmToolbox, the mod discussion forums, and ffmpeg. The project lead entries are spirit, listed as project lead and core development, and Traderain, listed as project lead.

What the licence and the disclaimer mean for a modder

Three things to understand before you build on this. The licence is GPL 3.0, which is fine for a modding tool and has an implication if you redistribute a modified WolvenKit, and the project states the tool is not made to generate revenue, which is a statement of intent rather than a licence term. The disclaimer is that the dev team is in no way responsible for any malfunctions that occur from its use, which for a tool that writes into game files is the ordinary risk of a file format tool and is the reason the project points new users at the wiki. And the game itself remains CD Projekt Red's, so the tool is what makes modding possible and the game is what makes the modding matter, which is the relationship the whole project exists to navigate. In practice, the version of WolvenKit you need is the one that matches the game patch you are running, which is why the nightly channel exists at all.

Editorial conclusion

WolvenKit is the right tool if you are modding Cyberpunk 2077, because the alternative is editing a proprietary format with no reference, and because the project treats the format knowledge as the valuable part and ships a modkit, an unpacker and a CLI alongside the editor. It is the wrong tool for The Witcher 3, because that line lives in a separate repository and targets a different engine version, and note that the licence is GPL 3.0, which allows commercial use, while the project states plainly that it is not made to generate revenue. Before you install it, check that you have the.NET 10 desktop runtime rather than the base runtime, and decide between the stable release and the nightly channel, because the nightly is the one that tracks a game patch sooner.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. License: GPL-3.0
2. Project website
3. README
4. Releases
5. WolvenKit/WolvenKit on GitHub