It may not be The Witcher 4, but the first real look at The Witcher 3’s new DLC, Songs of the Past, might just make the wait a little easier, especially when it’s coming soon after a free upgrade to The Witcher 3 Remastered, as was newly revealed at Gamescom Opening Night Live.
Developer CD Projekt Red showed off the upcoming expansion (just don’t call it DLC) as part of Gamescom Opening Night Live, revealing new details about the over-a-decade-later expansion coming to The Witcher 3.
But this came after the reveal of the game’s remastered version, whose changes and additions were numerous, including improved controls, a skill tree revamp, expanded photo mode, both past expansions, and tons more. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered launches on September 29 for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2, and it’s free if you already own The Witcher 3.
All announced changes for The Witcher 3 Remastered
- Upgraded visuals
- Enhanced combat
- Improved traversal and movement
- Revamped mount handling
- Improved monster behaviors
- Revamped skill tree
- Transmogrification
- Expanded photo mode
- New combat finishers
- Cross-platform mods
- Immersive meditation
- Refined animations
- New quest tracking
- UI improvements
- Looting rework
- Refreshed motion blur
- New accessibility features
- Updated textures
- Foliage shading rework
- Tutorial modernization
- HDR improvements
- GTAO (ground truth ambient occlusion, not Grand Theft Auto Online)
- Improved menu navigation
- Ray tracing improvements
- Global lighting rework
- New shading model
- Subsurface scattering
- New tone mapper
- PlayStation 5 Pro support
- Xbox Play Anywhere support
- Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive features
- Nvidia DLSS 4.5
- AMD FSR 4
- Intel XESS 2.0
- Path tracing on PC
- Ray reconstruction on PC
- Ray traced hair
- Native DX12
- Rendering parallelization
The expansion, Songs of the Past, will follow sometime next year as the third story expansion to the 2015 game.
Songs of the Past has been described as being similar in size and scope to The Witcher 3’s previous two expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. It’s currently slated to release in 2027 but was orginally planned for 2026.
There are still plenty of questions about Songs of the Past, namely how it might connect to the events of The Witcher 4, which will star Ciri instead of Geralt. CD Projekt Red recently confirmed The Witcher 4 is targeting a 2028 release.
