Gamescom 2026’s Opening Night Live event has revealed not only a current gen remaster for The Witcher 3 but CD Projekt are giving away its expansions for nothing.
It’s 11 years since the release of The Witcher 3 and while it’s one of the best-selling video games of all-time you would assume that its moment had passed, especially as developer CD Projekt has already announced a sequel. It’s not clear when that will be out though, so to get people excited about the series again CD Projekt has done more than just announce new DLC.
Releasing a major expansion for such an old game is unprecedented, although in hindsight it’s a great idea for creating a story bridge between the two titles. However, relatively little was shown of the DLC, called Songs Of The Past, at Gamescom on Tuesday evening, with the focus instead being on the previously unannounced The Witcher 3 Remastered.
It appears to be a major upgrade for the original game, not just in terms of visuals, but with promised changes to the combat, traversal system, horse-riding, skill tree, and much more.
This is excellent news because even at the time of the original release, the game was criticised for its weak combat. Although it’s surprising there’s no mention at all about improving the awkward inventory system, which was the other major complaint.
There may be more to the final release though, as CD Projekt developer Miles Toast appeared on stage to talk about the remaster and he described a revamped ability system, which isn’t specifically mentioned in the trailer.
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The best news is that all of this is completely free, if you already own the original game on GOG, Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, or Xbox Series X/S. You can even claim it for free on Nintendo Switch 2, if you already own the Switch 1 version. It’ll also be available on Battle.net for the first time.
As if the pot was not sweet enough, on top of that you get the existing expansions Hearts Of Stone and Blood And Wine for free too, either because you already had the base game or when you buy the remastered version separately.
A lot has changed for the remaster, although CD Projekt hasn’t gone into detail about any of them. The first 10 changes listed below are the ones most clearly highlighted during the trailer, whereas the others appear in small print for a split second, as they scroll up the screen.
The graphics do look a lot better (YouTube)
You really can’t ask for more than that, especially as the remaster is out very soon, on September 29. Considering how often the DLC was leaked it’s remarkable that CD Projekt has kept it secret, especially as it’s been made by an external developer called Yigsoft.
Songs Of The Past is being developed by Fool’s Theory, which is made up of a lot of The Witcher veterans. The same studio is also supposed to be doing The Witcher 1 remake, although nothing has been said or seen of that in a long time.
The original The Witcher game (which, to be honest, wasn’t very good) did get mentioned though, as the new chain weapon you can see in the Songs Of The Past trailer is a nod to that game’s intro. It wasn’t mentioned, but it also seems to be the same weapon Ciri uses in The Witcher 4 teaser trailer, so you can probably see where CD Projekt is going with that.
Not a lot was shown of the new expansion, but it will take advantage of all the improvements from the remastered version. The idea that it segues into The Witcher 4 is still only a theory though, as CD Projekt has never actually said that’s what it’s about.
