What Songs of the Past Is and Why It Matters
Songs of the Past is a newly announced Witcher 3 expansion that revisits Geralt of Rivia with fresh story content while updating the game’s technical foundations, arriving more than a decade after the original release. CD Projekt Red has confirmed this unexpected Witcher 3 expansion for 2027, describing it as a “brand new expansion” that takes players back on the Path with Geralt as the playable lead. It lands 12 years after The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and 11 years after Blood and Wine, making this return to Geralt new content one of the longest gaps between a base RPG and its DLC. For long-time players, it acts as a curtain call before The Witcher 4 passes the torch to Ciri, while for CD Projekt Red it doubles as a way to tie The Wild Hunt more closely to its next trilogy.
Geralt’s Final Ride Before The Witcher 4
Songs of the Past puts Geralt back in the spotlight at a time when CD Projekt Red is preparing players for Ciri’s lead role in The Witcher 4. According to Technobezz, the studio is positioning the new DLC to contrast with the next mainline game, where Geralt steps aside. The title suggests a focus on unresolved threads and older relationships rather than a clean epilogue, and reporting from Wccftech points to a setting closer to Velen, returning to one of the game’s harshest regions. Previous leaks hinted that this Songs of the Past DLC could bridge the narrative gap between Wild Hunt and the coming sequel, giving CD Projekt Red a lore-friendly way to seed factions, mysteries, and locations that will matter in Witcher 4, 5, and 6 without rewriting the ending of Blood and Wine.
Co-Developed With Fool’s Theory: A Fresh Take on a Classic
CD Projekt Red is not building Songs of the Past alone. The expansion is co-developed with Fool’s Theory, a studio made up of developers who previously worked on The Witcher 3 and are also handling the remake of the first Witcher. That shared history should help preserve the tone and quest design that made Wild Hunt so respected, while allowing a new team to test ideas that might appear in Witcher 4. CD Projekt calls Songs of the Past a collaboration that returns players “to the Path with Geralt of Rivia once more,” suggesting side content and main quests that match the base game rather than a small cosmetic add-on. With a reveal planned for late summer 2026 and release on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 in 2027, the project also signals that CD Projekt Red is comfortable extending Witcher 3’s lifespan alongside work on its next trilogy.
New Windows 11 Requirements and What They Mean for PC Fans
Supporting Songs of the Past means raising the floor for PC players. CD Projekt Red is updating The Witcher 3’s minimum specs to require Windows 11, SSD storage, and modern CPUs and GPUs. The studio’s support post explains that Windows 11 will be the minimum required OS for both The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 after Microsoft ends Windows 10 support on October 14, 2025, and that HDDs will no longer be supported in favor of faster load times and smoother streaming. The new baseline lists an AMD Ryzen 5 2600 or Intel Core i5-8400, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB, 6GB of VRAM, 12GB of RAM, and 70GB on an SSD, running DirectX 12. Players who cannot or will not meet these Windows 11 requirements can still revert to an earlier version of the game, but that older build will not support the new DLC.
A Strategic Return to The Witcher 3 After Cyberpunk
Songs of the Past arrives in the middle of an aggressive long-term roadmap. Technobezz notes that The Witcher 4 is targeting 2027 at the earliest, with Witcher 5 and Witcher 6 already on CD Projekt Red’s slate, while Cyberpunk 2 is not expected until at least 2030 and will not receive more Cyberpunk 2077 DLC. In that context, extending Wild Hunt with a substantial Witcher 3 expansion looks like both fan service and smart planning: it keeps the brand in players’ minds, lets the team test technology and storytelling that rely on Windows 11 and DirectX 12, and builds a bridge from an acclaimed classic to a new saga. For players, it means one more chance to step into Geralt’s boots in officially supported Geralt new content, rather than leaving his story frozen at Blood and Wine’s farewell.