Eleven years after The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt first arrived, I genuinely thought CD Projekt Red had finished tinkering with it.

We’ve already had the Complete Edition, a huge next-gen update, ray tracing, improved visuals, console performance modes and a modding scene that has kept the game alive far longer than most single-player RPGs ever manage.

Apparently that still wasn’t enough.

CD Projekt Red has now announced The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered, a free upgrade arriving on 29 September 2026, while also giving us our first proper look at Songs of the Past, a completely new paid expansion coming in 2027.

And there’s something you can actually get right now too. Anyone who already owns the base game now gets the original Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine expansions for free.

So, somehow, The Witcher 3 is properly relevant again in 2026.

So what has actually dropped for The Witcher 3?

There are three separate announcements here, which is worth clearing up because they’re already getting bundled together.

First, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine are now being given to existing owners of the base game at no extra cost.

Second, The Witcher 3 Remastered launches on 29 September 2026. Existing qualifying owners will receive the upgrade for free.

Third, Songs of the Past is not out yet. This is the newly revealed third paid expansion, scheduled for 2027.

So if you’re booting Steam, GOG, Xbox or PlayStation up expecting a brand-new Geralt adventure tonight, that’s not quite what has happened. What you can play immediately is the complete existing game and its two enormous expansions, assuming you already owned the base game.

The bigger changes are coming very soon.

The Witcher 3 Remastered sounds like far more than another texture pack

The interesting thing about Remastered is how much CD Projekt Red appears willing to mess with a game that was already considered finished.

There are the obvious visual improvements. CDPR says environments, NPCs and monsters are receiving higher quality textures, while foliage, lighting, rendering and ray tracing are all being upgraded.

That’s fairly predictable for something carrying the Remastered name.

The less predictable bits are what have got my attention.

Combat animations are being reworked, there are new finishers, movement and traversal are being improved and the camera can behave more dynamically during fights. There’s also a redesigned skill tree with new perks and abilities.

That’s potentially a much bigger deal than making Novigrad’s brickwork sharper.

The Witcher 3 still looks remarkably good for its age, especially after the previous next-gen update. Its systems are where you can sometimes feel the decade between then and now. If CDPR can improve combat flow and progression without losing what made Geralt feel like Geralt, this could make another full playthrough considerably more interesting.

We’re finally getting proper transmogrification too, which means looking like an actual Witcher rather than wearing whatever collection of statistically superior clown trousers Geralt happened to find in somebody’s cupboard.

Cross-platform mod support is being expanded, photo mode is being improved, and CDPR seems to be treating this as a new definitive baseline for The Witcher 3, rather than a quick graphical refresh.

The original 2022 next-gen update felt like the final coat of paint.

This doesn’t.

Giving Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine away is a clever move

Making both existing expansions free might actually be the smartest part of the announcement.

Hearts of Stone remains one of the best self-contained stories CD Projekt Red has made, while Blood and Wine is big enough that plenty of games would have sold its Toussaint adventure as a sequel.

Until now, somebody returning to a base copy of The Witcher 3 could still find themselves working out which edition they owned, which expansions they needed and whether buying another bundle was worth it.

That’s now basically gone.

If you’ve already bought The Witcher 3, CD Projekt Red wants you back in the complete game.

It also makes perfect commercial sense before launching another paid expansion.

If you’re going to ask millions of lapsed Witcher players to buy a third expansion in 2027, removing the paywall around the first two beforehand is a very good way of rebuilding that audience.

Players can come back, finish Geralt’s existing adventures, try the remaster in September and be sitting there ready when Songs of the Past arrives.

Songs of the Past is the real reason I’m interested

The remaster is welcome, but Songs of the Past is the bit I didn’t expect.

Rather than returning to one of the existing regions, the expansion takes Geralt to Letten, the homeland of Dandelion.

CD Projekt Red describes it as an apparently idyllic rural region full of harvest celebrations and local traditions, although this being The Witcher, something considerably nastier is obviously hiding underneath all of that.

Geralt accompanies Dandelion there on a deeply personal matter, which already makes the setup more interesting to me than simply finding another contract pinned to a notice board.

Dandelion has spent most of the series existing somewhere between Geralt’s best mate, unreliable narrator, professional nuisance and occasional reason an entire city is trying to kill somebody.

Taking us home with him gives CDPR a chance to do something much more personal with the character.

The expansion is also bringing new monsters, mutagens and combat possibilities, including a chain weapon that deliberately nods back to the original Witcher’s opening cinematic.

That’s exactly the sort of unnecessarily nerdy reference I want from what CD Projekt Red is describing as one last adventure with this version of Geralt.

One last Geralt adventure gives this expansion a bit more weight

Calling Songs of the Past the final chapter immediately changes how I look at it.

This isn’t simply a forgotten quest pack being pulled out of a drawer eleven years later.

CD Projekt Red is deliberately going back to one of the most successful RPGs ever made and giving its protagonist another ending.

The expansion is being developed alongside Fool’s Theory, the Polish studio also working with CD Projekt Red on The Witcher remake, which makes the whole thing feel less like a novelty DLC and more like part of the wider future of the franchise.

Exactly how final “final” eventually turns out to be is another matter. Geralt has survived monsters, wars, political conspiracies, portals and the games industry itself. I wouldn’t bet my house on never seeing him again.

But treating this as the last major Wild Hunt adventure gives CDPR an opportunity to close the book properly.

Why bring The Witcher 3 back now?

There is an obvious answer. The Witcher 3 has sold more than 65 million copies.

That’s an absurdly large installed audience to leave sitting around while the next generation of Witcher games is being prepared.

But I think there’s more to the timing than simply selling another expansion.

The remaster gives CDPR a modernised technical version of Wild Hunt. Giving the first two expansions away gets old owners back through the door. Songs of the Past then gives those returning players something genuinely new to look forward to.

It creates a bridge between the Witcher people already know and whatever comes next.

It also means somebody discovering the series for the first time in 2026 or 2027 isn’t starting with a visibly ageing 2015 release and immediately wondering whether they should wait for something newer.

Instead, they’re getting a refreshed version containing the whole existing saga, modernised systems, a gigantic amount of content and another expansion waiting at the end.

That’s a pretty ridiculous package.

When does The Witcher 3 Remastered release?

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered launches on 29 September 2026.

It will be available on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, while CD Projekt Red is also bringing native versions to Nintendo Switch 2 and Battle.net.

For qualifying existing owners on supported platforms, the Remastered upgrade will be free.

That gives us barely more than a month between the announcement and actually getting our hands on it, rather than the usual modern gaming ritual of announcing something and then spending three years watching trailers for it.

When does Songs of the Past release?

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Songs of the Past is due in 2027.

Unlike the Remastered upgrade and the newly free older expansions, Songs of the Past will be a paid expansion.

It’s planned for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2.

CD Projekt Red hasn’t announced an exact 2027 release date yet, so anything more specific floating around online should be treated as speculation until the studio says otherwise.

Is it worth reinstalling The Witcher 3?

If you’ve somehow managed to resist starting another save for the last few years, September is looking like a very good excuse.

I’d probably hold off on a complete restart until the Remastered update arrives on 29 September, particularly if the redesigned skill system and combat changes are as substantial as they sound.

If you never played Hearts of Stone or Blood and Wine, though, there’s now very little reason not to.

They’re available to existing owners, they’re still excellent, and playing through both would conveniently put you back into Witcher mode before Songs of the Past arrives next year.

Is The Witcher 3 Remastered free?

Yes. CD Projekt Red says the Remastered upgrade will be free for qualifying existing owners of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on the supported platforms.

Are Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine free now?

Yes. Current owners of the base game are being given access to both of the existing expansions at no extra cost.

That’s happening ahead of the September Remastered release.

Is Songs of the Past free?

No.

Songs of the Past is a new paid expansion arriving in 2027. It’s separate from the free Remastered upgrade and the giveaway of the two older expansions.

Is The Witcher 3 coming to Nintendo Switch 2?

Yes.

The Remastered edition is getting a native Nintendo Switch 2 release on 29 September 2026, and Songs of the Past is also planned for Switch 2 when the expansion arrives in 2027.

Somehow, I’m ready to play The Witcher 3 again

By normal games industry standards, The Witcher 3 should be ancient at this point.

Instead, it’s heading towards 2027 with upgraded graphics, reworked combat, a redesigned progression system, new abilities, better mod support, two newly free expansions and an entirely new region still to come.

That’s slightly ridiculous.

It’s also exactly why the game has refused to disappear.

CD Projekt Red doesn’t really need to convince people that The Witcher 3 was good. Millions of us already know that.

The difficult bit was convincing us to start the bloody thing again.

I think they might have managed it.