The Witcher 3 Is Dropping Windows 10 Support For Its New DLC, And Fans Aren’t Happy

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is getting a third story expansion in 2027, more than 12 years after the game’s original release. 2015 was a long, long time ago, and gaming hardware has drastically changed since– so much so that CD Projekt Red is updating the recommended specifications for The Witcher 3, dropping Windows 10 support in the process.

The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past will be skipping PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, which makes the slight change to the minimum requirements for PC understandable. The game will still be able to run on GPUs with less than 6GB of VRAM and 12GB of RAM. The requirement for an SSD over older hard drives might be tough if you haven’t upgraded yet, especially with current prices, but is likely one you would’ve made a while ago. 

What is slightly alarming is the shift towards making Windows 11 a requirement, which hasn’t gone down well with the PC community. “Mandatory Windows 11? Really? Either CDPR got a fat check from MicroSlop, or they don’t give a sh*t about players at all,” reads one thread on the Witcher 3 subreddit just a few hours after the expansion announcement. 

Many PC gamers are still on Windows 10 for various reasons, be it improved performance over the bloated Windows 11 or the inability to upgrade given the hardware requirements for the new operating system. Although The Witcher 3 now specifies Windows 11 in its minimum requirements, this does not mean that the game won’t run at all on earlier versions of the OS. Instead, as CD Projekt Red clarified later, it means that the studio won’t support or test the game on Windows 10 going forward.

This isn’t a decision CD Projekt Red is making in a vacuum. Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 10 in late 2025, with the company ceasing security updates as it prioritises Windows 11 upgrades. Nvidia is also expected to stop releasing GPU drivers for Windows 10 later this year, and before the launch of Songs of the Past, which will likely have a discernible effect on the game’s performance on your system.

“In short, this change does not mean that the game will not run on Windows 10,” a post on The Witcher 3 forums concludes. “It means we cannot ensure that it will. Our goal is not to take something away from you. Our goal is to give you what is best the best way we can.”

CD Projekt Red says that players will be able to revert to the current version of The Witcher 3 at any point, if newer updates make the game unplayable on Windows 10. The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past is expected to launch in 2027, with more details coming later in the summer.

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