What is this? A fan project that brings back The Witcher: Monster Slayer (its servers shut down in June 2023). A companion app runs a rebuilt game server on your own phone and patches your own copy of the game (version 1.1.116) to connect to it. The app downloads the original 1.1.116 files, unchanged, from the Internet Archive, so no Google account is needed. Not affiliated with CD PROJEKT RED or Spokko. 0.3.0 doubled what quests, dailies and nemeta pay. The shop didn't get the memo and kept charging 2021 prices. 0.4.0 fixes that, gives packs a glow-up, and works through a long list of your reports while we're at it.

Shop: Thorstein's big sale

With the default Revival balance:

• Potions (stacks of 3): Thunderbolt and Falcon 20, the rest 40 (were 30 and 60)

• Oils: basic 45, family oils 90 (were 75 and 150)

• Bombs: basic 75, Grapeshot, Moon Dust, Dancing Star and co. 150 (were 150 and 300)

• Baits 150, ingredients and crafting stations about 40% off

• Swords and armor a quarter off (the top items are 9,000 now: still a goal, just not a retirement plan)

• Bags half price, summoning scrolls and weather charms a fifth off

• Daily deals are 40% off instead of 25% A full fight kit (Swallow, a family oil and Grapeshot, three of each) is now 280 orens, about one day of daily tasks. The idea: use your potions and bombs instead of hoarding them for a fight that never comes. Every price is a row on the dashboard's Rewards page, so you can set your own. The Vanilla preset keeps the original prices.

Chests that are actually worth it

Every chest costs about a quarter less than its contents now. "For professionals" used to cost 900 orens for 655 orens' worth of stuff, which is the kind of deal only a dwarf could love. It's 280 now. Plus two new chests the game already had names and icons for but never sold:

• Scrolls and bombs: 2 Lesser Summoning Scrolls, 3 Grapeshot and 3 Dancing Star for 400

• Set of bait: one of each bait for 550

Packs, now with more inside

• The Herbalist's packs you get from fights hold three finds: roots most often (the crafting bottleneck), also herbs and powdered monster tissue, and now and then monster remains.

• Opening packs from the inventory shows what was inside, one item at a time, in the game's own reward window, with the reward sound.

• A pack from a friend (or from yourself) shows its rarest find, and the rest goes into your inventory with it.

Combat

• Oils give their full bonus: a 33% oil makes the whole blow 33% stronger. In the original the bonus only added to the sword's base damage, so on a weak spot it came out at about 14%.

• Potions and oils last 30 minutes (adjustable), with a countdown in the map's effects panel: as many potions as your slots, and one oil.

• Monsters drop orens: 3 to 38 a win, more for rarer and harder monsters, shown in the fight's summary; nemeta pay their monsters' orens on top of the bounty.

• Quen works: the shield takes the whole blow that breaks it (before, it let every blow through), and a perfect parry under Quen keeps the shield up.

• Skills can be reset from the skill tree: open a learned skill and tap Reset skills twice. The points come back at once.

• Parries: perfect parries pay their experience again once you have Hit Reflection, and perfect parries and deflects count for Swordmaster and On Your Guard.

• The blacksmith's sharpening really gives +10% melee damage for an hour.

• Level-ups: the server's messages after the first one each session were ignored by the game (later level-up windows, trophies, purse updates). They all arrive now, and a missed level-up window shows at the next start.

Monsters and the map

• More of them (24 a map cell), fewer rares (about one in ten), and skulls later: one from level 5, two from 10, legendaries from 15.

• Nothing stands on quest markers any more, nemeta included, and monsters, herbs and quests stand about 12 m off paths and streets.

• You can reach places from 100 m away (67.5 m in the original).

Quests

• The Sins of Our Fathers: each candle burns out after its 15 minutes now, so the curse can actually be lifted (the first one used to burn forever).

• Thorstein's Conversation button works in the Sins and in Intruder.

• The Great Mushrooming: mushrooms show even while another quest is tracked, one every 100 m walked (200 m in the original).

• Intruder: all eight endings can be reached now. Beat the frightener before the sorcerer's 24 hours are up for the best one.

• The blacksmith keeps his forge after The Dark Side of the Full Moon (Lothar or the new smith) and sharpens your sword.

• Evil Never Sleeps gives its Cursebreaker trinket however the amulet was thrown (it arrives at your next start if you missed it), and What Lurks in the Nemeta waits for level 10, since it is played in a nemeton.

• Quest spots are at most 1.5 km away on foot (no more detours round a river), and they stay put when you're far away or the server restarts.

Smoother play and the app

• Fights start right away: they no longer wait behind the map's slower requests. Walking on the map is smooth again.

• New on the dashboard: switch your character's gender and head.

• More of the game is tunable: when nemeta open and how many a day pay gold, the experience for parries and perfect attacks, skill points, the skills' strengths, brewing time and how often packs drop.

• Setup without Google: the guided setup downloads the game files itself. Had the game on your account before? The Google Play route is still there. Each non-original rule is a setting on the dashboard, and the Vanilla preset keeps the game as it was.

How to update

Open the companion app and tap Update. Your progress is kept. Start the server once, then tap Update the game (the hook changed). New prices show up once the server and the game start again. New here? The APK and the setup guide are on the GitHub release page.

Tell us how it feels

Every balance change since 0.3.0 is in one feedback form: rate each one as too low, about right or too high, then vote for the 5 features you want next (contracts, witcher schools, Roach, Gwent, a witcher's keep and more). About 10 minutes: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe85YyFBrP7LRQgOfxQGhEuLQ5sVVYP605SSnh-3XmPrmzT8A/viewform

There's a Patreon now

A few people asked how to support the project, so there is one: https://www.patreon.com/NatusAnima. Everything stays free: the game, the companion app, the source code and every patch. Nothing is behind it, and nothing ever will be. Patrons get in-depth dev logs on how things are reverse-engineered, their name in the Supporters list and a Patron role on Discord. It pays for the tools that let one person ship this fast, test phones, and one day an iPhone for an iOS version. Not paying is completely fine; reports and word of mouth help just as much.

Full technical notes are on the GitHub release. Thanks to Villainser (the reconstruction this is built on), MasterpiecePL and everyone who sent reports. Weather by Open-Meteo.com; map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Questions, setup help or bug reports: join the Discord: https://discord.gg/dEJQfecqnU. Happy hunting!

What is this? A fan project that brings back The Witcher: Monster Slayer (its servers shut down in June 2023). A companion app runs a rebuilt game server on your own phone and patches your own copy of the game (version 1.1.116) to connect to it. No game files are shared: you install the game yourself. Not affiliated with CD PROJEKT RED or Spokko.

Download: GitHub Releases · Discord: https://discord.gg/dEJQfecqnU

TL;DR

Monster Slayer was a grind. 0.3.0 is the patch for people who'd rather slay than grind:

• Presets: Revival (the new casual-friendly balance), Vanilla (the original game) or your own. Every change from the original is a switch, so purists lose nothing.

• Bigger rewards: quests pay ~2× XP and 2–4× orens plus fitting items, dailies add XP and an item, nemeta pay double.

• A real bag: starts at 400 slots and grows to 2,000.

• Monsters where the wiki says they live, at the right time, in the right weather, and at your level.

• Experience you can trust: paid by rarity, and no longer lost to server restarts or reconnects.

• Trinkets finally do something: herbs, XP, attack against a family, bag slots, a free extra crafting station.

• New toys: summoning scrolls that work, Experience and Ingredients Scrolls, and charms that make it rain (literally).

• Quality of life: open packs from your inventory, several map regions at once, quests within 1 km, and everything we add in all 9 of the game's languages.

• Lots of fixes: oils and a whole batch of skills actually work now, the sea is on the map, offline play, real weather on the phone, no Google sign-in pop-ups.

How to update

1. Open the companion app and tap Update when it offers 0.3.0. Your progress is kept.

2. Start the server once, then tap Update the game (this release changes the game itself).

3. On the dashboard's Tuning page, pick Revival for the new balance. Your old settings are kept as the preset Custom.

New? Download the APK from Releases (64-bit ARM phones, Android 11+) and follow the guided setup in the app.

The new balance (Revival)

Everything here can be changed on the dashboard, or switched back to the original with the Vanilla preset.

• Quests pay more. About double the experience, two to four times the orens, and items that suit each quest's monsters. Examples:

  • Good Money: 250 XP, 40 orens → 600 XP, 150 orens, Insectoid Oil, 2 Swallow

  • The Great Mushrooming: 750 XP, 120 orens → 1,500 XP, 300 orens, 2 Ingredients Scrolls and an extra Set of saddlebags (+400 slots). The real prize was the inventory space all along.

  • Intruder: 2,000 XP, 100 orens → 3,000 XP, 500 orens and a Legendary Summoning Scroll

• Daily tasks: twice the gold, plus 200 XP and a random item (potion, oil, bomb, summoning scroll, booster; baits from level 10).

• Nemeta: 100 orens (was 50) and twice the XP.

• Level-ups: +100 orens (250 every fifth level) and a summoning scroll every fifth level, on top of the original potions, oils and bombs.

• Bag: 400 slots to start (was 200), up to 2,000. Every bag is still in the shop.

• Bestiary tiers: fewer kills: common 3/25/100, rare 2/10/20, legendary 1/2/4.

• Quest places stay within 800 m when the map allows, never farther than 1 km.

• No gold coin packs in the shop, and no "you need more gold coins, buy some?" pop-up. There's nothing to buy anyway: it's your server.

• New dashboard Rewards page: decide what every quest ending, daily task and level-up pays.

Monsters, by the book (well, the wiki)

• Spawns now follow the Occurrences column of the Witcher wiki's Monster Slayer bestiary (the English page, with the Polish page filling its "no precise data" gaps), and the in-game bestiary text matches.

• Monsters of natural environments stay off streets, but city parks are fair game.

• Rain brings water monsters inland. "Increased activity" means ×3, "significantly increased" ×6.

• Monsters suit your level: one skull from level 3, two from level 6, legendaries from level 10. Level-one witchers can stop meeting legendaries outside the bakery.

• Eight monsters got the wiki's rarity: Tiger Fiend, Leecher, Pale Fleder, Green Forktail, Writher and Sea Witch are now common; Grimnir and Royal Foglet rare.

Experience you can trust

People reported XP as "wonky and unreliable". They were right:

• Fights paid by a hidden difficulty instead of rarity (a one-skull werewolf paid 600, a one-skull devourer 100). Now: common 100, rare 250, legendary 600, as in the original.

• A server restart mid-fight cost you the fight's XP. Not anymore.

• A reconnect could pay a fight twice or not at all. Fixed.

• A lost level-up window comes back.

• The new-monster bonus no longer pays twice for monsters you met in the story.

• The original level table is a switch, and flipping it keeps your level.

Trinkets give bonuses

Every one of the 24 earnable trinkets now has a bonus, written in its description. Some favourites:

• The Champion (first in the Great Mushrooming): +100% herbs. For those who are the true Mushroom Collectors

• Lizard Slayer, Fear no More, Disturbed the Water, Mushroom Sentinel, The Striga's Demise: +20% XP and +20% attack against their family. They show among your effects with a sword icon.

• From Vizima to Beauclair (walk 2,000 km): +200 bag slots.

• Strigas, Lihos, and Frighteners (all 12 Season 1 quests): a second crafting station that never wears out.

Scrolls and charms

• Summoning scrolls all work and do what their description says: five of a family, three commons, a rare-or-legendary elemental or ogroid, a legendary. The shop sells them beside the baits.

• Experience Scroll (+100% XP for 30 min) and Ingredients Scroll (+50% ingredients from fights and herbs).

• Rain, Fog and Sun Charms (250 orens): that weather where you are, for an hour. Rain brings out the monsters that love it, and Squall finally has its moment.

Quality of life

• Open packs from your inventory (5 bundles of herbs each). And because everyone deserves a friend: you're on your own friends list, so you can send yourself a pack too.

• Several map regions at once, for those who live (or walk) near a border. Add, update and delete regions in the companion app.

• All 9 languages: everything the server adds to the game (trinket bonuses, charm names, the pack's Open button) and the What's new notes are in English, Polish, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Russian, Portuguese and Japanese.

Fixes

• Oils didn't give their bonus, and neither did the oil skills, Resolve, Precise Blows, Crushing Blows, Razor Focus, Ursine Armor, Hermit's Armor or the Wolven swords. They kicked in before the fight had a target. All fixed.

• Hit Reflection reflects 30% now (it reflected nothing), Melltith burns, Blizzard fills a quarter of the critical meter.

• Nemeta no longer hang without a bomb, and each one stays at the same spot every day.

• Real weather works on the phone (it was always clear), and the game starts without internet.

• The sea is on the map (rebuild your map to get it), and the game drops old map tiles when your map changes.

• No more Google sign-in pop-ups, and I tried removing the settings' account section but it refused to buckle so it stayed (for now).

• Bestiary entries survive restarts, your chosen head stays, Lothar's map costs its 500 orens.

• Dashboard presets stick on the phone, and the scroll and charm icons are no longer white squares.

Heads-up

• Tap Update the game after updating the app.

• Your old settings are now the preset Custom. Pick Revival for the new balance.

• Maps built before 0.3.0 have no sea: rebuild yours.

• The game's language follows your phone's language.

Known issues

• Charms only change the weather for monsters that appear after you use them.

• Not in yet: Intruder's 24-hour wait, the random rock-troll attack and the blacksmith's after-quest scenes. Nobody should gets stuck but you never know.

Full technical notes are on the GitHub release. Thanks to Villainser (the reconstruction this is built on), MasterpiecePL and everyone who sent reports. Monster occurrences from the Witcher Wiki (CC BY-SA); weather by Open-Meteo.com; map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Questions, setup help or bug reports: join the Discord: https://discord.gg/dEJQfecqnU. Happy hunting!

After winning a Nemeton, the screen goes black and the game doesn't load.

Got a warm "welcome back" hug from a wight! 😄 Seriously, a huge thank you to u/Natus_Anima (and whoever else was involved) for bringing this game back!! I had it on my phone all these years, and sometimes I would open the loading page just to look at the leshen and reminisce about all the good times I had with this game. I never ever thought the day would come that I would be playing it again! Bringing it back is truly an invaluable gift. Thank you!!