Geralt's back for one last Roach ride in long-rumoured The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt expansion Songs of the Past

Though anyone with a PC of the past should note the rising system requirements

Silver-haired fox of an RPG The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is officially getting a new expansion, ten years after Blood and Wine and over eleven since the base game launch. It’s called Songs of the Past, it’s being co-developed between CD Projekt Red and The Witcher 1 Remake devs Fool’s Theory, and its coming in 2027 – potentially the same trip round t’Sun as The Witcher 4.

Unlike the full-fat sequel, Songs of the Past will still star Geralt in the main playable role, though that’s about it for current details. It does, in fact, look an awful lot like CDPR rushed this announcement out sharpish, following an apparently premature reveal on the Polish version of CDPR's RED launcher. I don’t know how Poles say "Christ lads, we’ve cocked it", but I’d wager it was being said with some frequency.

A more apt unveiling may have taken place during tomorrow’s Blood and Wine anniversary stream, the announcement of which was enough to spark whispers of a possible of a third, plus-sized DLC – a topic that’s been swirling around Witcherites’ consciousness for months. Mark reported, back in January, rumours that Fool’s Theory were involved in a new expansion, and that it could take place in the exotic realm of Zerrikania; a region as-yet unvisited in the game series. The latter point remains unconfirmed, though I do share our most yellow-eyed staff writer’s view that Songs of the Past should follow its own name and add Yakuza-style karaoke minigames to taverns. It could even include covers of Kiryu’s greatest hits, though that might be breaking za law.

What is confirmed is that ahead of the expansion’s release, Wild Hunt’s minimum system requirements will be rising, and pretty significantly too. On top of the CPU, graphics card, and RAM requirements all creeping up, the final threads of Windows 10 support are being cut – the Steam version already went Windows 11-only in 2024 – and HDD support will go bye-bye in exclusive favour of faster SSDs. These new requirements will come into force “from the next update”, which doesn’t specify it being the release of Songs of the Past, so if you’re still playing The Witcher 3 on an ancient mechanical hard drive then consider switching over sooner rather than later.

This isn’t the first time Wild Hunt has made tech upgrades – despite a fumbled launch, 2022’s next-gen update did seriously modernise the game’s graphics options – but the new specs do set a rather high base line, considering. The new list includes the same minimum Nvidia GPU, the GTX 1660, as 007: First Light, and that’s a brand-new game releasing today. Players on clunking old rigs can, at least, revert to an older Wild Hunt version, though that naturally means Songs of the Past will fall on deaf ears.