What The Witcher 3's Songs of the Past DLC Tells Us About The Witcher 4's Release Date

After many months of speculation, it’s finally been confirmed that The Witcher 3 is getting another expansion ten years after Blood and Wine, which is widely considered one of the best DLCs of all time. This sort of DLC release strategy is extremely rare; I certainly can’t think of another time that such a high-profile, single-player game received an expansion more than a decade after its heyday. Leave it to CD Projekt Red to stay unpredictable.

Now that we know that The Witcher 3 – Songs of the Past indeed exists and is on its way, the only thing left to do now is wait and theorize. The expansion will follow Geralt of Rivia, and it’s likely meant to bridge the gap between The Witcher 3 and The Witcher 4. CD Projekt Red has also stated that, despite The Witcher 3 being a fairly early 8th-generation release, Songs of the Past will be current-gen only, and will have higher minimum PC requirements than the base game. In this way, Songs of the Past is also bridging the technological gap between The Witcher 3 and The Witcher 4, potentially gearing up for a launch in 2027.

The Witcher 3 Songs of the Past DLC Will Officially Be Unplayable for Millions of People

The recently announced Songs of the Past DLC for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt won’t be playable for a huge portion of the original game’s audience.

The Witcher 4 Might Come Out in 2027, Preceded by Songs of the Past

We know that Songs of the Past is slated for a release in 2027, and while this doesn’t guarantee that The Witcher 4 will launch in the same year, there’s a case to be made for the one-two punch. After all, what better way to generate extra hype for The Witcher 4 than by reviving The Witcher 3 for one last hurrah? Assuming Songs of the Past lands well, players will probably be champing at the bit for more Witcher once credits roll. These players would likely cough up the cash for a Witcher 4 preorder without a second thought.

Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.

Easy (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)

There’s also the matter of The Witcher 3 linking to The Witcher 4 in some way. In a recent earnings call, CDPR exec Piotr Nielubowicz described Songs of the Past as a “prologue” to The Witcher 4, though “not in a verbatim way.” This is cryptic, but if we interpret it as confirmation of Songs of the Past setting the narrative stage for The Witcher 4, then it’s reasonable to think that CDPR would want to make the transition between the two as smooth as possible. Put more plainly, The Witcher 4 would do best to strike when the iron’s hot, building off the plot of Songs while it’s still fresh in players’ collective memory.

The Case for The Witcher 4 Coming Out in 2028

While Songs of the Past could be an amuse-bouche for The Witcher 4, it could also be CD Projekt’s headline release of 2027. In that same earnings call I previously mentioned, the developer mentioned that it considered releasing Songs of the Past this year before ultimately deciding on 2027; if CDPR’s plan was to release Songs of the Past in the same year as The Witcher 4, that would mean that The Witcher 4 was, at some point, considered ready to ship by 2026, which seems unlikely. As such, the expansion may have always been designed to be decoupled from the next Witcher game.

If we reason backwards from an assumed 2028 Witcher 4 release date, Songs of the Past launching in 2027 makes sense. The expansion would effectively be CD Projekt Red’s big 2027 game, simultaneously tiding over Witcher fans and generating revenue during a quieter year for the studio. Songs of the Past is said to be “aligned” with the scope and scale of The Witcher 3’s previous DLCs, so its launch could be comparable to that of a full video game, making it sensible to give it more runway in 2027.