The Witcher 3 Remastered Weapon Reforge Guide: How to Transmog and Upgrade Your Swords

I’ve sunk hundreds of hours into the Continent, and one thing has annoyed me every single playthrough: the Grandmaster Feline sword is a monster on paper and kind of ugly in my hand. For years the deal was brutal. You either ran the best stats or the best look. Never both.

The Remastered edition finally ends that. The new Reforge system is a proper, in-world transmog feature, and honestly it’s the best quality-of-life addition CD Projekt has made to this game. Below you’ll find how it works, how to unlock it, the weird bugs people keep complaining about on Reddit, and how to pair a pretty sword with numbers that actually carry you through Death March.

What Reforge Actually Does

Think of Reforge as a paint job for your steel and silver. You pick a weapon you’re using, pick another sword’s model you’ve already found, and the game pastes that look onto your blade. Nothing else changes. Your sword keeps every single stat, rune and enchantment it had before:

• Base damage, physical and elemental
• Armor piercing, crit chance and crit damage
• Sign Intensity bonuses
• Bleed, burn, poison, freeze and stagger chances
• Socketed runestones and Runewright enchantments

So yes, you can run a Mastercrafted Viper sword with all its juicy bonuses while it looks like a beat-up Temerian steel blade. The scabbard and the way the sword sits on Geralt’s back change too, so the whole silhouette gets the makeover.

Where to Unlock It (Spoiler: Not Your Local Blacksmith)

Don’t bother pestering random smiths in White Orchard or Velen. Reforge is locked behind master-tier craftsmen, and here’s the catch that trips up a lot of people: weapons and armor are two separate unlocks. Finishing one does nothing for the other.

This guide is about the weapon side, so let’s go find Hattori.

Hattori’s Quest: Of Swords and Dumplings

Head to the southern docks of Novigrad, close to the Novigrad Docks fast travel point. You’ll spot a little setup with an outdoor cooking hearth, and behind it a guy who looks like a plain dumpling vendor. That’s your man. Talk to him and the level 24 quest kicks off.

Here’s how the job plays out:

• Help Hattori hammer out a deal with a local underworld supplier
• Keep him alive when rival thugs, led by Cleaver’s crew, come knocking
• Recruit a bodyguard named Sukrus
• Pull off a sneaky heist on a rival warehouse to grab quality smithing materials

Once you wrap it up, Hattori drops the apron and goes back to being the master blacksmith he really is. Talk to him, open the crafting services option, and you’ll find a new Reforge tab in the top-left corner of the menu.

Heads up for NG+ runners: Your Reforge access does not carry over. Start a New Game Plus cycle and Hattori’s shop resets. You’ll have to walk back to Novigrad and redo the quest at its scaled-up NG+ level. Yes, even if you’re hauling Legendary Grandmaster gear. Plan for it so you’re not staring at a locked menu wondering what you did wrong.

How to Reforge a Weapon, Step by Step

The menu is clean, but a couple of spots deserve your attention.

1. Open the tab. Talk to Hattori, pick “Would you craft something for me?”, then switch to Reforge.
2. Pick your base weapon. Browse steel, silver or crossbows and highlight the one with the stats you’re actually running. That’s the sword whose numbers you’re protecting.
3. Pick the skin. Scroll through your unlocked appearances. The UI shows a preview, so take your time and check how it looks.
4. Pay up. Each change costs a flat 150 to 300 Crowns. A full dual-sword makeover runs roughly 300 to 600 Crowns. That’s pocket change by midgame, so don’t sweat it.

The moment you confirm, the new look is on your blade. No waiting, no cutscene.

The Fine Print Nobody Tells You

Remastered launched and the forums lit up with questions about how Reforge tracks your skins. Here are the rules that’ll save you time and gold.

You have to own the look first. No cheating here. If you want your silver sword to wear the Aerondight model or the Forgotten Wolf design, go out and earn them. Finish the quests, solve the scavenger hunts, and physically get the weapon. Only then does the skin show up in your list. It’s a fair system, and it gives old-school treasure hunting a real reason to exist again.

The game checks a lot of places. It scans your inventory, your master stash, and even gear you’ve dismantled or sold to big merchants in the past. So a sword you tossed ages ago may still count as an unlocked appearance.

The padlock bug is real, but the fix is easy. Some older weapons show a padlock icon in the Reforge menu and refuse to work as skins. Here’s the community fix that works:

1. Pull the locked weapon out of your inventory
2. Drop it in your stash
3. Close the menu, then open the stash again
4. Grab it back into your inventory

That forced reload refreshes the item tags and clears the lock. Annoying, but it takes ten seconds.

Witcher gear tiers stay pinned. Say you slap the Enhanced Feline look on a blade. The game uses that exact model. Upgrade the underlying sword later through crafting and the skin won’t auto-update. It stays on your chosen appearance until you go back to Hattori and change it yourself. That’s actually handy, since your favorite look can’t be overwritten by accident.

Reforge Is a Costume, Not a Power-Up

Let me be blunt, because I’ve seen newer players get this wrong: Reforge adds zero power. It’s cosmetic only. If you’re planning to survive Death March encounters in late-game zones, you still need to do the real work of upgrading and tuning your weapons.

Witcher School Gear Upgrades

The best way to boost your blades is through the school gear sets: Gryphon, Feline, Ursine, Wolven, Manticore and Viper. You’ll need to track down upgrade diagrams scattered across the map, and the progression is strict:

Base → Enhanced → Superior → Mastercrafted → Grandmaster (plus Legendary versions in NG+)

Every step uses the previous tier’s sword as a crafting ingredient. So don’t sell or dismantle your current Witcher swords if you plan to push that school’s build further. I learned this the hard way once, and rebuilding from scratch was painful.

Runestones and the Runewright

Better swords carry up to three sockets, and runestones fill them with passive perks:

Want the real endgame stuff? Visit the Runewright, the merchant tucked in the far northeastern corner of the Novigrad map (he came with the Hearts of Stone expansion). Fund his workshop through three gold tiers and he’ll eat all three sockets on a sword to apply a full enchantment. Severance stretches the physical reach of your Whirl and Rend skills, and Invigoration turns surplus healing into bonus physical damage. Both are seriously strong.

And here’s where Reforge shines: you can stack one of those wild enchantments on a sword and still make it look like a humble Temerian steel blade. Sleeper build, hidden menace. I love it.

Don’t Forget Durability

A gorgeous sword that’s falling apart hits like a wet noodle. Once the durability meter drops below 100%, you take a direct hit to base weapon damage. Carry a few Master Weapon Repair Kits for road trips, or swing by Hattori and use his repair service for a full restore.

Quick Reference: Reforging vs. Crafting

Witcher 3 Remastered Transmog Guide: How to Change Armor Appearance

My Take

I’ll say it plainly: Reforge is the feature I didn’t know I needed until I used it. Running a min-maxed build used to mean dragging around swords I’d never pick for looks alone. Now I can build the most broken setup possible and still play a Geralt that matches the fantasy in my head. Want a lightly armored rogue swinging huge heavy blades? Done. Prefer an armored tank carrying elegant, minimalist steel? Also done.

The one thing that stings is the NG+ reset. Redoing Hattori’s questline every cycle feels like busywork, and I’d bet plenty of you will grumble about it too. The quest is fun enough the first time, but by your third playthrough you’ll want that tab back the second you land in Novigrad.

Even with that gripe, this is a big win. Keep your stash tidy, keep your swords sharp, and keep enough Crowns in your pouch to keep Hattori’s forge roaring.

How To Transmog Weapons in The Witcher 3 Remastered (Reforge Weapon Guide)