The Witcher 3 is getting another major overhaul, and existing owners get both expansions free

CD Projekt Red has announced The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered, giving the eleven-year-old classic adventure another substantial overhaul. The new version launches on September 29, and this time the changes extend well beyond prettier graphics. It modernises the game across its visuals, performance and gameplay. Combat has been overhauled, the skill system has been reworked, and Roach's notoriously temperamental movement and controls have received improvements. The remaster also adds a long-requested transmog system, allowing players to change the appearance of Geralt's equipment without sacrificing its underlying stats.

Those changes make The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered substantially different from the free next-generation update released in 2022. That version already introduced real-time ray tracing, improved level of detail, faster loading, integrated community mods, a photo mode and other visual and quality-of-life improvements. This time, CD Projekt Red appears to be targeting some of the game's underlying systems and several pain points that have followed The Witcher 3 since its original 2015 release. Then again, the modding community addressed them a while ago, but it is good to see CD Projekt Red finally acknowledging the shortcomings of what is otherwise an excellent game.

Free The Witcher 3 DLCs for existing owners

Like with the previous 2022 overhaul, existing owners of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on GOG, Steam, the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S will receive Remastered as a free upgrade. The game is also being sold separately on Battle.net and Nintendo Switch 2. If that wasn’t enough, CD Projekt Red is sweetening the deal further for anyone who owns only the base game. All existing owners will gain access to Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine for free. Furthermore, both expansions will be bundled with new copies of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered.

Unfortunately, CD Projekt Red didn’t have much to reveal about the game’s third expansion: Songs of the Past. The new expansion is scheduled to arrive in 2027 (wishlist it here), but the new landing page gives us some idea of what is in store. Songs of the Past will take Geralt to Letten, the rural homeland of Dandelion, for a full-fledged new chapter built around an ominous curse threatening the region. The expansion promises new monsters, dozens of side quests and points of interest, and additional combat options, including a chain weapon and new mutagens. CD Projekt Red says it first conceived the story nearly a decade ago and is now bringing it to life in collaboration with Fool’s Theory.

For now, its price is a mystery, and this time, getting it right will be a challenge because the debate around “why does a DLC for an eleven-year-old game cost so much?” will almost certainly dominate discourse regardless of how CD Projekt Red prices it. Then again, The Witcher 3 is revered by the community, and as long as the price is not overwhelmingly high, Songs of the Past will be an ideal stop-gap solution to keep the franchise in the public memory before The Witcher 4 eventually drops.