New ‘The Witcher 3’ Expansion Will Set Up The Next Trilogy In The Franchise

Last month, studio CD Projekt Red announced a third expansion for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt titled “Songs of the Past.”

While it was initially set to release this year, “Songs of the Past” will now launch in 2027.

CD Projekt Red CEO Michal Nowakowski told investors that the expansion “is, in a way, a prologue.”

“It’s not a prologue in a verbatim way of [being] a prologue for the actual The Witcher 4. Yes, you can look at it as it’s a way to maintain certain chatter on The Witcher 3. All of those are side effects, additional side effects. The core thing for us, from our perspective, is really delivering a high-quality, fun experience to the existing fans of The Witcher.”

The studio has also been very clear that “Songs of the Past” will be a large-scale expansion rather than just DLC.

Official artwork posted over a month ago features a new-looking sword lying by protagonist Geralt of Rivia. On a livestream to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Witcher 3‘s second expansion, “Blood and Wine,” CD Projekt Red’s Amelia Korzycka explained, “so yes, Geralt is holding a sword. It is a very important sword for the story, and you will get to know it when the game comes out. So a few more streams before that when [we] reveal it.”

Nowakowski elaborated, “We really wanted to deliver a great experience to the fans, a really cool expansion that’s going to make people happy that they can come back to The Witcher 3 setting.” On the topic of the new 2027 release date, he revealed, “We had a moment where our plans assumed that Songs of the Past would be released this year. We decided together with the development team that the game will be launching in 2027, to be honest, to achieve the best possible result from the consumer standpoint, which, in the end, frankly speaking, is the only ultimate thing that really matters.”

CD Projekt Red reportedly has the majority of its staff now working on The Witcher 4, which has yet to receive a release date. However, we do know that the studio plans to release the fifth and sixth mainline Witcher games in the next six years, as well.

On this note, Nowakowski admited that “the plans are pretty ambitious. It would be difficult, to be very honest, for us to add an expansion to the upcoming trilogy. This is where we are here and now with this particular issue.”