Yes, you read that right. It’s been over a decade since the game released, and CD Projekt Red just revealed the third expansion. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Songs of the Past is coming to PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 in 2027.
It’s been almost three full years since our last News piece on The Witcher 3 (the release of Update 4.04). And a little over a year since we published our last guide for the game. Both I and Vulkk continue to play it from time to time, but after so many years and countless hours of fun, things have finally started to calm down.
The new expansion has been officially announced, but it was heavily rumored for months. Everyone expects that it will be the bridge between the “best game ever made” *cough* and the next best game ever made (or so we hope about The Witcher 4).
What can we expect from Songs of the Past
While thousands of us are filled with excitement, the truth is that we have no idea about how much new content we’re getting in this new expansion. I think that the best approach is to look back at the previous expansions and see what they provided.
Analysis based on the previous expansions
Hearts of Stone was the first expansion of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It introduced new characters, monsters, romance, weapons, objects, Gwent cards, and a brand new storyline that led to an immortal enemy.
Blood and Wine is the second expansion of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The most obvious addition was Toussaint, a new land filled with beauty, deceit, and new activities.
Some of the highlights include a tournament, a new realm you can visit, strange creatures that originally appear in children’s books, a spoon-collecting creature, and a powerful beast that no one has been able to stop.
Combined, both expansions provide between 40-60 hours of new content. Even by today’s standards, that’s a lot of gameplay time. But what makes them so outstanding isn’t just the number of hours needed to complete them, but the incredible stories that you shape with each decision.
Even if Songs of the Past doesn’t take us to a new land, I think it’s safe to assume that we’re getting new weapons, one or two romance possibilities, new monsters, and a compelling story that will force us to make difficult choices.
Possible connections with the latest Witcher novel
There are a lot of speculations that the title of the third expansion, Songs of the Past, might takes us back in time and incorporate bits and pieces of the latest book from The Witcher series, Crossroads of Ravens (Amazon affiliate link).
This is a prequel that not only sets some myths straight, but also gives us a very interesting look at a young and inexperienced Geralt who has just started his career as a witcher.
Connection with The Witcher IV
The official announcement of The Witcher IV revealed that Ciri will be the main protagonist of the game. While this wasn’t a big surprise, it still made us wonder about some gaps in the story and how she got to that point where we saw here in The Witcher IV tech demo. Did something happen to Geralt? If that’s the case, we need some way to learn about it.
I can’t think of a better way to discover that than in this new expansion. Such an important event requires something just as special. Songs of the Past is the perfect candidate for this. If I’m right, then this might be the most important expansion the game has received.
CD Projekt Red is hosting a livestream on Thursday, May 28th, at 5 PM CEST on their official YouTube and Twitch channels. However, they have stated that they won’t show anything from this expansion. More information about Songs of the Past will come out later in the summer.
Who is working on this expansion?
According to the official post, Songs of the Past is being co-developed with Fool’s Theory, an independent game studio that also happens to be based in Poland. Fool’s Theory has worked on two games so far.
The first one is Seven, an open-world, isometric stealth and action RPG. The second and most recent one is The Thaumaturge, a story-driven RPG focused on dark and esoteric themes.
I have never played any of these games, so I can’t say anything good or bad about them. What I can say is that Seven has mostly positive reviews on Steam, while The Thaumaturge has very positive ones.
The following picture is a creature from The Thaumaturge; I’d say it matches the aesthetic of The Witcher 3. If the rest of the game is like this, it’d make sense why they’re working on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Songs from the Past.
Fool’s Theory is the studio behind the Witcher 1 Remake project. The team there is comprised of individuals who have a lot of experience with The Witcher 3, including devs who actively participated in the development of the game years ago.
New and higher PC Requirements for The Witcher 3
The new expansion is also coming with new system requirements. Most consoles and relatively modern PCs should still be able to run it. If it’s not the case for you, there’s plenty of time to upgrade.
The following table shows the previous minimum requirements compared to the new ones. There are additional notes from CD Projekt Red under the table that explain this decision.
| Previous | New | |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i5-2500k AMD A10-5800k | Intel Core i5-8400 AMD Ryzen 5 2600 |
| GPU | GTX 660 Radeon HD 7870 | GTX 1660 Radeon RX 5500 XT 8 GB |
| VRAM | 2 GB | 6 GB |
| RAM | 6 GB | 12 GB |
| Storage | 50 GB | 70 GB SSD |
| OS | Windows 7, 8 | Windows 11 |
Additional notes by CDPR:
- Windows 11 will be the minimum required OS for both The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 following Microsoft’s end of support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025. Without ongoing security updates, official platform support, and continued GPU driver support, we will no longer test our games on Windows 10.
- HDDs will no longer be supported, as SSDs offer faster load times, smoother asset streaming, and improved overall performance.
- The game will exclusively run using DirectX 12, which allows us to support ongoing technical improvements and modern hardware more effectively.
- Only processors supported on Windows 11 will be supported by us.
- Only graphics cards with ongoing active driver support for gaming on Windows 11 will be supported.
- These changes do not mean that the game will not run on Windows 10. It means we cannot ensure that it will. Our goal is not to take something away from you, but to give you what is best the best way we can.
