CD Projekt RED is known to have a bit of a sense of humor, and the Warsaw-based game developer found a novel way to go after players who used exploits to save up vast amounts of money in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The studio has decided to give cheaters a dose of reality by sending an in-game tax collector to audit their ill-begotten goods.

Players who purchase the recently released Witcher 3 expansion Hearts of Stone will be visited at one point in the game by a tax collector who grills them about how they acquired their wealth, and if he discovers that they used shady means to earn their money, he will levy a hefty fine against them, basically cleaning them out.

Of course, CD Projekt’s punishment is all in good fun, and the developer does not force players to give up their coin. When the tax collector asks if they acquired their money illicitly, players can choose to say no, and he will take their word for it, whether they are telling the truth or not.

Bovine Defense Force Initiative

This is not the first time CD Projekt has chosen to use less than conventional methods to fight back against exploits.

One way players previously raked in cash was by selling cattle hides to vendors. The hides are worth a moderate amount of money in The Witcher 3, and players discovered they they could kill an entire herd, meditate (which causes time to pass in-game), and then kill the herd again to quickly stock up on hides, which they could then sell off. After repeating this process a few times, players could quickly find themselves with all the money they would ever need.

Rather than lowering the price of the hides or changing how quickly the cattle response, CD Projekt decided to add what it called the “Bovine Defense Force Initiative” in a patch. Players could still kill the cattle for their hides, but if they tried to use the meditation trick to get the herd to respawn, they would instead be greeted by an extremely powerful monster that could easily kill low-level or unprepared players.

Image courtesy of CD Projekt RED