Changes are coming in The Witcher 3 remaster and Songs of the Past, and your trusty steed, Roach, is among the areas where you might notice some alterations. The mighty horse definitely has a distinct personality in the original game, and aspects of that have been upgraded for this update and the Songs of the Past DLC - but you can turn that all off if you prefer.

In an interview with Fall Damage, Karolina Kuzia, the design director at Fool's Theory, the studio that helped make Songs of the Past, addressed whether Roach's bugs had been fixed. "When it comes to Roach and her shenanigans, why take something that is light?" she asks.

She then passes the question to her colleague, Miles Tost, the level design lead at CD Projekt Red, who elaborates. "I don't know of any Roach bugs, I think she's perfect," he says. "Having said that, one cool thing about the remaster update is that we have updates to Roach's movement behavior, so on that count, that may be disappointing to you."

Yes, that is a little disconcerting, because Roach is truly a singular equestrian companion, even if she has a tendency to get in doorways you need to get through and other impossible places. She's a mess, but she's our mess, and we've grown to love and accept her in all her multitudes.

CD Projekt Red anticipated this by adding a toggle for the older and newer behavioral patterns. "You can turn that off," Tost adds. "If you prefer legacy Roach, the way you have grown to know her, be my guest."

Be your guest I shall be, Mr. Tost. I do enjoy keeping some aspects like these in remasters, because they become indelible to my nostalgia. Roach reminds you you're in a big, goofy fantasy game, and in a world like Geralt's you need that sometimes.

After 20 years voicing Geralt, The Witcher 3 star Doug Cockle says revisiting his character for Songs of the Past is "like slipping into a warm bath"

If you're stressed about AI slop creeping its way into The Witcher 4, fear not, CD Projekt Red says it's still using humans as its primary means of developing games, even if robots are seemingly replacing people at an alarming rate everywhere else.

During CDPR's latest earnings call, joint CEO Michał Nowakowski was asked to explain the company's current approach to AI in game development, and he toed the line in a similar way to most executives from major studios. Essentially, he acknowledged the tech's usefulness in certain areas of development but rejected straight-up AI-generated games, which isn't a particularly hot take but is noteworthy coming from the co-head of a studio behind some of the most anticipated games on the horizon.

"AI is definitely becoming a thing in the games development as well. We are still predominantly using people and this is our plan, to make games where we're not walking away from that," says Nowakowski. "AI, if anything, is a tool like many others that's helping in places that can maybe become more helpful in the future but we're not planning to rely on AI making complete games."

Well, that's certainly a relief. Here I was worrying a piece of obscure AI-generated concept art would find its way into The Witcher 4; now I have to deal with the idea of completely AI-generated games, but thankfully Nowakowski made it clear CDPR draws an ethical line on atrocities like that. What other developers do with their games, however, is up to them.

"To be honest, especially with very complex games like ours, I don't even think this is the right or ethical path to follow, so whether this is true for the whole industry, I'm not the person to make those statements. I think everybody has to make those judgments on their own."

Ultimately, Nowakowski's current philosophy on AI in game development mirrors the most common sentiments expressed by video game executives across the board: it's largely fine if used to streamline processes as long as it doesn't make it into the final product. There's no telling whether that approach will change as the technology evolves, but for now we can rest easy knowing AI-generated Geralt only exists in our nightmares.

"It creates lesser games": Indie game studios are supposed to love generative AI, so why do the 25 devs I spoke to avoid it?

The Witcher 4 is in production – or, more specifically, "full-scale production," as developer CD Projekt Red put it back in 2024. The studio has offered the public only a few small, tantalizing glimpses at the upcoming RPG, but it's passing new internal development milestones all the time. Those kinds of things are just too technical to announce to the public.

With The Witcher 4 officially targeting a 2028 release, joint CEO Michał Nowakowski was asked about where the team is at in regard to key development milestones as part of a recent investor Q&A. "As we have stated quite a few times before, we're in the full production stage of The Witcher 4, which roughly means – in very broad strokes – that we know what kind of game we're making," Nowakowski says.

"Then it's filling the game with content and so on," he continues. "We're not going into specific details. There's a lot of milestones we have internally. There's a pickup of specific batches, pickup of specific milestones. So we're not announcing all of them because a lot of them are very technical, very internal, and actually wouldn't really mean a lot to the external audience."

For those of us who don't work within the halls of CD Projekt Red, The Witcher 4 has appeared in the form of an extended cinematic trailer, an open-world tech demo, and various statements from executives and developers just like this. The devs themselves would seemingly prefer to keep their heads down and stick to actually building the game.

"This is what is happening right now: the actual making of the game till its release date," Nowakowski says. "Every milestone is a moment for us to look at it and ponder where we are, how well we are progressing with the development. Is anything hindering us? Is there any iteration that is required? And so on."

CD Projekt has set a high bar for itself with one of the best RPGs ever made.

Last week, Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 provided us with our first look at both The Witcher 3 Remastered and CD Projekt Red's new expansion for the RPG, Songs of the Past.

The expansion marks the return of Geralt's voice actor, Doug Cockle, who is taking on the role of the game's silver-haired protagonist once more… a role he's now been familiar with for over 20 years, since the original Witcher game.

How does Cockle feel stepping back into Geralt's boots for Songs of the Past, though? Well, he tells GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2026.

"It's always a thrill to step back into Geralt's shoes," Cockle admits. "He is a character I know very, very well, so it's always a pleasure to revisit him, and it has been for Songs of the Past as well."

It's comforting, too, as per the actor's words – sort of like… taking a hot bath at the end of a tough day, apparently? "I always describe it as like slipping into a warm bath," as Cockle puts it. "It's just very comfortable, very easy."

Acting is "still work," however, as he goes on to say – "but it's work that is very comfortable for me to to move back into, and it's always a pleasure." That makes sense.
After all, "I've been voicing Geralt since 2006, I think it is," Cockle recalls, "so over 20 years now, and as long as CDPR keeps asking me to come back…" he will. Yes, even if he's "like 80 years old," he'd still be willing to voice the beloved witcher.

John Schwab, voice of Dandelion, largely feels the same. He tells GamesRadar+ that he "got more excitement stepping into the booth because I was returning to the character."

So The Witcher RPG series is one its actors are not only comfy with at this point (and then some), but also one that they genuinely enjoy being a part of. As a fan myself, as much is made obvious by their observable talent.

Nobody was more surprised by The Witcher 3 Songs of the Past than Geralt and Dandelion's actors: "They announced the expansion pack before we knew what we were doing."

The Witcher 3 Remastered launches later this month as a free update for all existing owners of the RPG. It's a meaty update with a load of improvements, including freshly revamped combat. CD Projekt Red might even have been forgiven for treating it as an all-new game and charging existing Witcher 3 owners for the privilege of paying for it. But joint CEO Michał Nowakowski says that possibility was never even on the table.

"I don't think it was ever a thought we even had," Nowakowski tells The Game Business. "It was never a question we asked ourselves. The way we thought about it is like 'it's an improvement.'" CD Projekt has made a habit of offering massive, free updates for its previous games, notably including The Witcher 1 and Cyberpunk 2077.

Of course, the remaster is being subsidized in other ways: partly through a price hike for new buyers, and partly through sales of the upcoming Songs of the Past DLC. Nowakowski doesn't address the price increase, but he does say the expansion was always part of the calculation.

"We never thought about this way," Nowakowski says of charging for the remaster. "The commercial bit of it is the expansion, obviously. We really felt this is the CDPR way, to gift it to the players who already own it. Of course, if you haven't, then you will have to purchase the game from scratch. But then we tried to sweeten the deal for you by adding two expansions into the whole package. It was just never a question we asked ourselves, to be honest."

The remaster itself exists because of the work CD Projekt Red was doing with Fool's Theory on Songs of the Past, according to Nowakowski. "We started chatting, like 'why don't we make the game more modern? Everything feels like it was developed like 10 years ago.' That was really the beginning of the conversation," he explains.

"'What could we do to improve it?' It started with small things like 'maybe let's fix this,' 'maybe let's fix that,' and then it turned into this larger project," he says. "We suddenly realized we actually have a remaster on our hands."

Here are all the upcoming CD Projekt Red games you need to know about.

There was a peculiar vibe throughout Gamescom 2026's Opening Night Live showcase, pronounced by the fact that its biggest reveal, the dramatic climax of the whole event, was an update for an 11-year-old game. The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past, DLC taking place after the events of the original game and the Blood and Wine expansion, was announced back in May but we got our first proper look at it during this year's Gamescom, and if you felt like it was the highlight of the show, some newly revealed Steam data backs that up.

Rhys Elliott, head of market analysis at Alinea Analytics, shared the top winners from Gamescom 2026 by Steam wishlists on Twitter, and The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past took the top spot by a pretty large margin. The DLC gained an estimated 451,000 wishlists between August 23, two days before Opening Night Live, and the end of the event on August 30.

The hype around The Witcher series is amplified by several major developments, including the DLC and the recently announced Witcher 3 remaster, and headlined by the upcoming sequel, The Witcher 4, which is "targeting" a 2028 release.

Warlock was another big hitter during the event and takes second place in Elliott's ranking with an estimated increase in Steam wishlists of 379,000. The next big D&D game to come after Baldur's Gate 3 showed off almost 10 minutes of gameplay, exploring a gritty RPG world and cast led by none other than Maggie Robertson, who you'll remember as Oren the Red in Baldur's Gate 3 and Lady Dimitrescu in Resident Evil Village.

Coming in at third place is the very anime open-world RPG Ananta, which gained an estimated 302,000 Steam wishlists during Gamescom week. The free-to-play game, which can reasonably be likened to an anime take on GTA, got a January 2027 release date during the show, and a new trailer showed off high-speed vehicle chases and vehicular combat as well as what appears to be some sort of flying mechanic. Frankly, it was a lot to take in even in the context of anime-inspired GTA-like games, which is already a wild concept.

The rest of the list, in order of most-to-least Steam wishlists gained during the event, includes Lego: Skylines (273,000), Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (189,000), Wardogs (146,000), Afterworld (121,000), Metro 2039 (110,000), and The Blood of Dawnwalker (108,000), which just launched to pretty great reviews.

The Witcher 3 Remastered won't scrap saves or achievements from the OG RPG as CD Projekt Red confirms it'll all carry over.

CD Projekt Red's games – think banger RPGs like Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 – perform quite well on consoles… and even though such platforms have hit a bit of a wall costs-wise with the RAMpocalypse and what have you, the studio isn't worried.

Michał Nowakowski, joint CD Projekt Red CEO, explains as much in a new interview with The Game Business, describing how he believes console brands like Xbox and PlayStation will live on despite RAM shortage struggles and other roadblocks – and his own company's games' potential performance on such platforms in the future is not a concern at this point.

"I'm not worried," as Nowakowski says. "Consoles are still necessary to broaden the audience on the casual or semi-casual level. It's important to have easy to plug in and enjoy gaming."

I suppose he's right there. Although I'm more of a PC gamer myself, I can appreciate the moments I kick back to play on my Switch 2 for a change. It's a matter of convenience – and, yes, price… even if consoles are hiking their own price tags.

Regardless, Nowakowski doesn't see them going anywhere.

"I'm a big believer that they're going to weather the storm," he admits, going on to say he's aware of the "the objective challenge" that is pricing – and the rumors of next-gen consoles being delayed.

I mean, Sony's CEO couldn't give a release date for the PS6 last month, and the ongoing shortage of hardware components isn't helping settle consumers' concerns. But, does it really matter either way?

Nowakowski thinks not.

"How we reach gamers is a little irrelevant. Content is the king. And if the content is right, people will find a way to play it," the CD Projekt Red lead says. "When we launch, if PS5, Xbox Series X/S is what people are playing, we're going to be there. We're going to find a business model that’s going to work for us, that's going to be fine for players, and that's it."

Sounds pretty good, if you ask me… deliver to the players, wherever they may be.

"If the next-gen gets delayed, it could be the case that some ideas are put on a shelf for the future," Nowakowski concludes. "We'd have to adjust. We're not worried on the commercial side. Consoles are here to stay" – and, you know, something tells me he's right.

The Witcher 3 Remastered won't scrap saves or achievements from the OG RPG as CD Projekt Red confirms it'll all carry over

The video game industry is equal parts art and business, and convincing the business people in the industry to actually fund the artists is a never-ending struggle. (Just look at the furloughed devs behind the recently released Star Wars: Zero Company.) But CD Projekt Red joint CEO Michał Nowakowski knows that some games – like The Witcher 4 and GTA 6 – can't be made by pinching pennies.

"We are cost-conscious," Nowakowski tells The Game Business. "It's not unimportant. We're a business in the end, so I would [be lying] if I said it doesn't matter how much the game costs. But the first thing is whether the quality we're meeting is there, period. Whether we're meeting the expectations of what the fans are expecting from the next installment of The Witcher. This is the dominant thing we look at."

The Witcher 4 certainly doesn't have an unlimited budget, and Nowakowski alludes to certain financial "boundaries" guiding the game's development. But he says cost is not the "number one position" in determining the production plan.

"But I definitely wouldn’t say this is a cost-driven development," he continues. "If you want to have a cost-driven development – and that’s proper business thinking for a lot of games – you cannot make a game like The Witcher 4. I doubt if the development of GTA 6 was a cost-driven development. In fact, I'm 100% sure it wasn't. I think the philosophy might be very similar in many ways."

CD Projekt Red has a lot to prove with its next big RPG. Even as Cyberpunk 2077's reputation has turned around thanks to a nonstop barrage of updates and improvements, the shadow of its very bad launch still lingers. But even Cyberpunk's untimely release was more of a result of dev burnout than financial pressure.

"The decision to launch was for sure wrong, period," Nowakowski admits. "There’s no denying it. But there's no easy answer, like some magical 'investors' or stuff like that. I read a lot of that on the internet, [that investors were] telling us 'you have to release now or else.' That was not the situation. It was much more complicated – much more psychological, I would even say."

The Witcher 4 probably isn't coming to PS5 with a physical disc, CD Projekt Red boss says, but fans will still get something to "open up and enjoy."

Despite releasing after Sony's physical game deadline, CD Projekt Red says The Witcher 4 will have a game box with something on PS5, even if it doesn't have a disc.

I'm sure we all know the story by now: Sony announced it would end physical disc production for PlayStation consoles in 2028, and everyone is upset and calling Sony out for its anti-consumer, anti-preservation moves. Meanwhile, Sony wants to remind people they don't own their games, with its lawyers offering the frankly ridiculous argument that no one thinks they own a digital game, because only one person could ever have it. While some devs – like Hideo Kojima – have publicly expressed concern, there's been word that many publishers are quietly unhappy with the decision.

This was then followed by the news that The Witcher 4 will release in 2028 if all goes to plan, and many put two and two together and concluded that this would put the massive RPG in the digital-only realm on PlayStation.

Speaking to The Game Business, CD Projekt Red joint-CEO Michał Nowakowski explains that the decision is out of its hands: "We know what PlayStation has announced. And we have no influence on the policies of the first parties. The discs for the first parties, including PlayStation, have to be manufactured in their own factories. So, if they stop manufacturing indeed by 2028, then yes [we won't have a disc]."

However, even if The Witcher 4 does not have a disc, Nowakowski pledges there will be something for physical-game fans. "We're big fans of people having access to tangible collectible things," he explains, "So, whatever is the case, we're going to be for sure having a box. We're going to have a box that's going to have some feelies in it. Something you're going to be wanting to open up and enjoy. But we have no influence actually on what's the case here."

CD Projekt Red is also one of the few third-party publishers that released a Nintendo Switch 2 game on an actual cartridge rather than a Game-Key Card, with Cyberpunk 2077 being the only launch game outside of Nintendo's own to be complete on the cart. And while it's currently digital-only, the studio has confirmed details of The Witcher 3 Remastered's Switch 2 physical edition are coming "when the time is right."

The Witcher 4 narrative lead also wanted Geralt as the protagonist at first, but he "will always have an important role"

Last week's Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 showcase saw the reveal of The Witcher 3 Remastered, a reworked take on CD Projekt Red's original 2015 RPG – and excited fans don't need to worry about losing their decade-old progress, apparently.

Developers reveal as much in a new post over on X, explaining that all of our saves from The Witcher 3 will, in fact, carry over to the remaster coming later this month.

"We've seen your questions about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered," it reads. "Good news: your current saves will work with the upgrade, so you can get back on the Path right where you left off."

Good news indeed, especially for those of us with hundreds of hours clocked in-game.

That's not all, either. Apparently, all of our unlocked achievements (or trophies, for all you PlayStation 5 enjoyers) will still be unlocked in The Witcher 3 Remastered – no need to spend ages grinding Gwent cards and the like again.

As CD Projekt Red says, "Your unlocked achievements and trophies will carry over too!" I'm thrilled, personally, and I'm evidently not alone, with folks commenting that this is "great to hear."

Some people, however, do wish they could redo it all – because of course they do. As various other replies highlight, a lot of fans want to "100%" The Witcher 3 once more… which makes sense, I suppose, when you consider just how good the original RPG is.

As grueling a task completing everything again might be, I can see why players would want to. Heck, I have nearly 1,000 hours in the game on PC alone myself.

Regarding what The Witcher 3 Remastered brings to the table that we've not yet seen, there's everything from "improved combat" to overhauled visuals to look forward to.

There's also CD Projekt Red's new DLC for the RPG, Songs of the Past, and, of course, The Witcher 4, to anticipate. It's a better time than ever to be a fan of the Polish studio's lineup of games, I'd say – I know I certainly am, and I can't wait for it all to release.

After avoiding game-key cards with Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red says The Witcher 3 Remastered's Switch 2 physical edition details will come "when the time is right"

The Witcher 4's narrative lead Philipp Weber understands why some fans are having trouble letting go of Geralt in the spotlight. He, too, didn't want the iconic monster hunter to take a back seat in the upcoming game, but it's alright, because Geralt will apparently "always have an important role."

A loud contingent of fans upset that Ciri is taking over as the protagonist of The Witcher 4 have been making their displeasure very vocal online. Once a quest designer on The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, Weber's now responded to one such fan.

"I understand that many people feel like this," he tweets in reply to a player calling for Geralt to take Ciri's place as The Witcher 4's lead. Weber even says he "felt like that at the start," so it's CD Projekt Red's "job to prove with W4 that Ciri will be a worthy main character for the game. We take that task very seriously!" And even if his gruff growl isn't front and centre the entire time, "Geralt will always have an important role."

Ciri's role as protagonist has been a hot debate ever since the upcoming CD Projekt Red game's first proper reveal. Engineering production manager Jan Hermanowicz previously told GamesRadar+ that fans should reserve their judgement for after they've actually played the sequel. "When the game will be out, you'll be able to see for yourself and fully embrace her character, her story," he said last year.

The Witcher 4 won't be ready until 2028, the developer recently clarified, but fans will have plenty to sink both their swords into until then. The Witcher 3 Remastered is coming out next month, and it's free for all existing owners, which should be a good appetizer for the Songs of the Past expansion launching next year.

"After all this time, we get to show you more of Songs of the Past, a story long in the making," Weber said of the long-awaited DLC. "Geralt's adventure in Letten contains so much of our and especially our good friends at Fool's Theory's love for the Witcher. And for all our original fans, that chain is for you!!!"

The Witcher 3 Remastered sees CD Projekt Red work with one of the RPG's most beloved modders to make his work "officially available in the game"

As part of CD Projekt Red's Gamescom 2026 offerings, we got a look at the upcoming The Witcher 3 Remastered, and especially the port for the Switch 2. After giving us plenty of insight on how the RPG will run on Nintendo's system, we got a little update on that coveted physical release - though it's not very exciting, I'm afraid.

CD Projekt tucked the little titbit into the back half of a dedicated presentation during the third day of the event. "The news will come when the time is right," the panel says, in response to a question about getting the game in tangible form.

Told you it wasn't very exciting. But such is the process of making physical games. They're collector's items now, and not entirely intended for mass production, and the company ducked out on going the game card route for Cyberpunk 2077. Most of the people who pick up The Witcher 3 Remastered on the latest Nintendo platform will be doing so digitally anyway, since this is how audiences have shifted.

I'm sure there are plenty of people internally at CD Projekt Red who advocate for owning games on discs and cartridges, but this is a game that's been out for over a decade now. Putting it on physical media on yet another platform just won't be top of the to-do list.

It's good to hear the possibility wasn't shot down - I would expect we'll hear something within a relatively short amount of time of Geralt of Rivia making his way onto the hybrid console. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Remastered comes out on Switch September 29, which would make Christmas a sound window to get some cases and carts into stores.

Despite the RPG's age, this is just one of several ways CD Projekt Red is continuing to support it. There's brand new DLC coming next year, Songs of the Past, and that'll help link this installment up to The Witcher 4. Geralt's got plenty of work ahead of him, to say the least.

A month before The Witcher 3 Remastered, CD Projekt Red quietly raises the price of the Complete Edition on Steam

Days after announcing a remastered version of The Witcher 3, CD Projekt Red has gone and silently bumped the price up of the Complete Edition on Steam.

A user on Resetera noticed the increase in the UK via SteamDB's price tracker graph, and I can verify that it has also went up $10 in the US, bringing it to $49.99.

The Witcher 3 Complete Edition comes with all the DLC expansion packs released for the game and will be upgraded to the Remastered version for free next month, but it's kind of a shady move to nudge the price after the news.

The price bump would be understandable given The Witcher 3 Remastered's visual and gameplay improvements. Applying that to the old game that's been around for years seemingly to capitalize on people picking it up for the first time, however, is a lame move by CD Projekt Red.

Over on GOG, the Complete Edition is actually 50% off. CD Projekt Red no longer owns the digital platform, but it would still be in charge of deciding where these prices get slashed. Even if the intent isn't to milk Steam users specifically, the discrepancy is confusing at the very least.

The Witcher 3 is a great game that is about to get even better with the Remastered version. I'd probably recommend it in a world where it never dropped in price. But games are expensive no matter how you look at it, and CD Projekt Red has historically prided itself on caring about its players, so I hope to see this reverted before too long.

The Witcher 3 Remastered tweaks combat "to be much more smooth and precise," as CD Projekt Red wants the 2015 RPG "to stand up to today's games"

Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy overlord Naoki Hamaguchi can't believe he got to share the Gamescom stage with his hero, Geralt of Rivia – in spirit, at least, since developer CD Projekt Red used Opening Night Live 2026 to announce its unexpected The Witcher 3 refresh and expansion. And The Witcher 4 lead level designer Miles Tost feels the same way.

"The pleasure was ours," Tost writes in an August 26 Twitter reply to Hamaguchi. "Final Fantasy, especially 7 have a special place in my heart and I'm so happy I get to relive that through your and your team's hard work!"

Originally, Hamaguchi wrote on Twitter after Opening Night Live (ONL), "Sharing the final spotlight at ONL alongside The Witcher 3, one of my favorite games of all time, was a truly special moment for me.
It was a great honor to stand on the same stage as a game that has inspired me for so many years."

It's rare that you see developers as seemingly untouchable as Square Enix's Hamaguchi show that, in the cocoon of their living rooms, they're still fans who feel that knot of excitement forming each time a certain title screen comes up. It's nice!

Hamaguchi has always been generous in sharing his love for The Witcher franchise, though, spending the past few years emphasizing that The Witcher 3 is one of his major Final Fantasy 7 remake inspirations. In 2024, Final Fantasy producer Yoshinori Kitase even told fans that, while watching that year's Witcher 4 trailer at The Game Awards, "Hamaguchi was so excited when Ciri removed her hood, he almost stood up!"

So I'm especially glad for him to be at Gamescom this year, where he was also recently able to meet CD Projekt Red joint CEO Michał Nowakowski and show him some of Square Enix's upcoming Final Fantasy 7 Revelation. Hamaguchi says on Twitter about the experience, "It was a great honor to have Michał Nowakowski, Joint CEO of CD PROJEKT RED, stop by the Square Enix booth.

"Sharing the stage at ONL alongside The Witcher 3, one of my all-time favorite games, was already a special moment. Having Michał come by in person made it even more memorable.

"I was also very happy to tell him directly that The Witcher 3 continues to be one of the biggest inspirations for me as a game creator." Let us pray, now, for Hamaguchi's sake, that the new The Witcher 3 expansion Songs of the Past is just as sweet as he probably thinks it is when it launches in 2027.

Keep up with the entire Gamescom 2026 schedule.

A couple of days ago, Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 provided us with our first-ever look at both The Witcher 3 Remastered and CD Projekt Red's new expansion for the RPG, Songs of the Past – an expansion the voice actors didn't even know was happening.

Well, not at first, anyway. Geralt actor Doug Cockle and voice of Dandelion John Schwab reveal as much in a new live stream with CD Projekt Red, explaining that they had no idea why the studio wanted them back in for more lines.

In fact, Schwab wasn't even in the loop at all until after Songs of the Past was public knowledge. "They announced the expansion pack before we knew what we were doing," he admits.

"So, I was like, 'They've announced it, I haven't got called… oh well, it was fun being Dandelion – good luck to whoever does it now!"

Thankfully, Schwab did indeed return as everyone's favorite bard. On the other hand, Cockle says he did know he's be coming back to voice more Geralt… but he wasn't sure why he got the call. "I had a little bit more of a headstart on John," as the actor describes.

"I got a little heads up from someone at CDPR – they were like, 'Are you available around these times for something that might be happening?' So, that's kind of how I found out… but I didn't know exactly what it was until it was actually announced officially on social media."

That's honestly amusing and, well, a bit mind-boggling, seeing as Songs of the Past was first unveiled online in May of this year.

Even more interestingly, CD Projekt Red first conceptualized Songs of the Past "years" ago, only for Fool's Theory to step in and breathe life back into it later on down the line.
As for when it's set to release, though, Songs of the Past is coming sometime in 2027.

Excited for The Witcher 4? Be sure to browse through our roundup of all the upcoming CD Projekt Red games for even more to look forward to.

Earlier this week, Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 gave us our first look at The Witcher 3 Remastered and as CD Projekt Red's huge new DLC for the RPG, Songs of the Past – an expansion that's apparently existed in theory for quite some time now.

Fool's Theory, the studio partnering with CD Projekt Red for the expansion's development, reveals as much in an interview with Eurogamer, explaining that The Witcher 3 team had in fact conceptualized Songs of the Past "years" ago – but "had to put it aside for various reasons."

How did the original developers feel about that, though? Well, according to quest designer Philipp Weber, it wasn't easy for them to do.

"Good things take time," however – and that's precisely the case with Songs of the Past.

As he goes on to write over on X in response to Fool's Theory's words on the expansion's "age," if you will," it was still tough. "At first, we were heartbroken when our story disappeared in the vaults."

But, then, Fool's Theory swooped in and came to the rescue… breathing life back into The Witcher 3, 10 years after its last expansion, Blood and Wine.

"Imagine the wonderful surprise when years later, our good friends at Fool's Theory would take the bones of this story and developed it into the Songs of the Past," as Weber recalls.

It's a bittersweet memory, I'm sure – helping think up what might end up standing as one of the greatest Witcher 3 expansions, having to scrap it for a good while, and then seeing it come back into the limelight with the help of fellow devs at another studio.

Songs of the Past itself takes us to Letten, home of everyone's favorite bard, Dandelion, as Geralt journeys to find the whereabouts of his musically talented friend. From Belleteyn to silver chains as a weapon, the expansion will let us experience many series firsts as the snowy-haired protagonist… and I, for one, cannot wait.

Between that and The Witcher 4, I'm honestly not sure what I'm more excited about.

It's a good time to be a Witcher fan, eh? Be sure to browse through our roundup of all the upcoming CD Projekt Red games for even more to look forward to.

This week's big Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 showcase delivered a reveal no one expected from CD Projekt Red: an official remastered version of The Witcher 3.

Fit with everything from "improved combat" to stunning overhauled visuals, The Witcher 3 Remastered is one heck of a huge undertaking for the studio – but, apparently, it's got a bit of help from an unexpected source: a modder known as "HalkHogan" (brilliant, I know) over on Nexus Mods.

In case you don't recognize him by name, he's the mastermind behind The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project NextGen Edition.

It's a mod that, well, upgrades and essentially "remasters" The Witcher 3 – but with CD Projekt Red's official remaster coming, fans understandably had concerns about the mod and how relevant it'll be (or what HalkHogan may plan to do with it).

Turns out it'll be relevant indeed… because it's being integrated into the actual game. The modder confirms as much in a new post over on the modding platform, and I am thrilled.

"It's been a while since the last news and I would like to clarify any questions and confirm that I am cooperating with CDPR on the Witcher 3 Remaster and my work will be officially available in the game on September 29th (on PC and consoles)," HalkHogan writes. "HDRP will no longer be needed."

If this is a dream, please don't pinch me. I'm getting a brand new remaster and I can scrap the one and only mod I ever used?

Much like CD Projekt Red, HalkHogan has also been hard at work to ensure everything going into the game from his end is pixel-perfect. "Almost all in-game characters, monsters, animals, vegetation, armors, and equipment for Geralt and Roach, and a large part of the environment, have been reworked," as he explains. "And I've put a lot of effort into ensuring the highest quality."

I have no doubts myself here, honestly.

I'm sure that the folks behind his mod's 725,582 downloads don't either – but I suppose we'll all find out next month, come The Witcher 3 Remastered.

The Witcher 3 Remastered tweaks combat "to be much more smooth and precise," as CD Projekt Red wants the 2015 RPG "to stand up to today's games"

The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past isn't going to make the 11-year-old base game feel brand new, because it doesn't need to. CD Projekt Red and the Songs of the Past expansion's co-developer Fool's Theory knows The Witcher 3 is the ideal RPG experience, so Songs of the Past – due in 2027 – should enhance rather than overpower it.

It'll be like a pinch of salt. Fool's Theory CEO Jakub Rokosz explains to PC Gamer in a new interview, "I wouldn't say that [Songs of the Past] will feel different, simply because Witcher 3 aged really well, as a game."

"It's still very relevant," Rokosz continues to say about The Witcher 3. "It became a staple for RPGs back in the day when it came out, and even now, when you replay it, you don't really feel it's an old game." In this case, words like "back in the day" and "old" refer to the candied days of 2015, which, in video game years, isn't so gravely long ago. Some of the most essential video games in history, like Silent Hill, take nearly 30 years to get a remake, or they never do, and they're never blessed with belated expansions, or even just little botox.

So The Witcher 3 is lucky: it's young, and CD Projekt Red is making sure it stays beautiful. CD Projekt Red executive producer Jakub Kutrzuba tells PC Gamer The Witcher 3 remaster launching on September 29 should look like it "released in 2026."

"All the improvements make the combat much more smooth, much more natural," explains CD Projekt's joint CEO Adam Badowski. "You can change target while playing the animation or performing strikes, and it gives the game a kind of freshness."

GamesRadar+ managing editor Ali Jones got to taste a bit of those improvements during his scripted demo time with Songs of the Past at Gamescom 2026.

"Even this story-based section seems to fit seamlessly into the existing world of The Witcher 3, while the upcoming remaster's features push much of what made the original game so special even further," Ali writes in his demo preview. See? Enhance, not overpower. Any more than that, and CD Projekt Red would be ruining a great set of bones – and the developer knows it.

CD Projekt Red snuck 30 improvements into The Witcher 3 Remastered reveal, including "immersive meditation," new quest tracking, a loot rework, and Switch 2 exclusives.

Despite it being set to launch 12 years after the original game, The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past was apparently written well in advance of its reveal.

Speaking to Eurogamer, co-developer Fool's Theory CEO Jakub Rokosz explains that, "The story was conceived, way back when, in CD Projekt Red by Ola Motyka and Philip Weber." But the writer duo – who worked on the Witcher 3 base game – "had to put it aside for various reasons." Rokosz explains that, "stars had to align" for things to finally come to fruition, and Fool's Theory had to grow in size.

Rokosz says, "A few years later, the topic resurfaced and we started working on [Songs of the Past]. We've been digging deeper, and growing it since then, and that is how it came to be the expansion you see today."

Despoina Anetaki, senior quest designer at CD Projekt Red, explains that the Songs of the Past expansion is also motivated by a desire to flesh out Dandelion as a character, explaining, "We didn't have that much space to explore him, and now we have the space to explore him, tell his story, and see him more fully. In the books, for example, he has these more philosophical conversations with Geralt – now we get to actually see a deeper side to Dandelion in the game, too."

Songs of the Past is set to launch in 2027, and it will be the third expansion for The Witcher 3. Despite the somewhat random drop – you don't exactly see game expansions releasing over a decade later very often – it sounds just as meaty as the previous Witcher 3 expansions. Its new location Letten is described by CD Projekt Red as a "fully realized open world" in its own right.

Now, why not read our The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past preview?

CD Projekt Red dropped a brand new date in our Fall gaming diaries at Gamescom Opening Night Live last night; September 29. That's when The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Remastered lands on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch 2, but there's a nostalgic smell of pro-consumer moves in the air as well. The full remaster will be available as a free upgrade for anyone who already owns a copy of the game. To take advantage of that, though, you'll need either a physical or digital copy in your library.

Right now, The Witcher 3 Complete Edition (the base game seems to be unavailable) will run you $49.99 via either PlayStation or Xbox's digital storefronts, with Nintendo coming in at $59.99. We can easily do better than that. As if we didn't need another reason to dread the upcoming digi-pocalypse, physical copies will secure your game for a fraction of that price right now - of course, you'll need a console that can take a disk to benefit.

The absolute cheapest way to do it is via GameStop's pre-owned stock. There you'll find the PS4 base game (remember, all expansions are free now as well) for $6.99 with the Xbox version sitting at $4.99. You're spending a little more if you'd prefer a brand new disk - I'd recommend PS5 players head to Amazon for a $16.24 price tag while Xbox players are looking at $16.95 here as well.

The cheapest way to buy The Witcher 3 on PS5 / Xbox

Thankfully for PS5 and Xbox players, the original PS4 / Xbox One release is still floating around and it's still cheaper than the Complete Edition. Now that Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine are both free, players might as well opt for the original release to get their library sorted for the full upgrade.

The cheapest way to buy The Witcher 3 on Nintendo Switch

The Nintendo Switch version is a little spicier. Only the Complete Edition is available on Ninty's handheld, and prices have stuck a little closer to launch over the years. Combine that with the fact that GameStop's pre-owed copies are up in the double digits and Amazon's listings have ballooned in price and you're looking at a slightly heftier bill. You can still secure a cart (or a download) for less than the full $59.99 Switch 2 release, but the savings don't roll quite as deep as they do for PlayStation and Xbox fans.

Right now, the original Complete Edition is up at $59.99 on Nintendo's eShop, matching the same price as the (now available for pre-order) Switch 2 release. Most retailers come underneath this price right now, with GameStop still leading the pack with its pre-owned stock.

Of course, there's plenty more to look forward to. We're also rounding up the latest GTA 6 pre-order prices and showing you where to pre-order Marvel's Wolverine PS5 consoles.

What brings Geralt out of retirement for The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past? The last time we saw The White Wolf, at the end of Blood & Wine, he was preparing to settle down for his retirement in Toussaint. Now, he's been dragged to a whole new corner of the continent for a new expansion that CD Projekt Red says will rival The Witcher 3's original two. The catalyst, as with many of Geralt's (mis)adventures, is his chaotic friendship with Dandelion

Specifically in Songs of the Past, however, that's Dandelion in his role Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove. At the start of my hands-off demo, Geralt has traveled to his friend's noble seat in Letten. Waking up after a wild night of partying to celebrate the Belleteyn, it's immediately clear that something is wrong. Dandelion is missing, he's lost his flute, and a threatening dream suggests to Geralt that this is no ordinary hangover.

Heading to Dandelion's family estate for breakfast, Geralt's fears for his friend are founded further by a heated conversation between his grandmother, and Dandelion's cousin, Lilla. She links Dandelion's absence with the details from Geralt's dream, pointing directly towards the mysterious Garden of Thorns and a scandal that engulfed a distant ancestor, and it's not long before Lilla and Geralt are riding off in search of Dandelion.

Thorny subject

In this scripted demo, there's relatively little chance to explore Letten itself, but lead level designer Miles Tost says it's a "fully realized open-world which you can explore freely". It's similar in scale to Blood & Wine, and there's a comparably dreamy, fairytale feeling to this new region to what we saw in Toussaint. At the same time, Tost says that there's a desire to bring this 11-year-old game into a more modern era. The new features that are launching with The Witcher 3 Remastered are most keenly seen in combat, but Letten also looks better than I remember the base game looking, with improved lighting and vastly denser environments bringing its villages to life even as you gallop through them.

That vibrancy is something The Witcher 3 has always done well, but it's clear CDPR has pushed it further here. Tost suggests that NPCs have more detailed routines and more dialogue. The world around Letten is teeming with the stories of the night before as Geralt rides Roach through its lakeside villages, inspired this time by the countryside of England and southern Poland. As the fog rises slowly off the lake and the sunlight diffuses gently through it as partygoers drag themselves back to their daily lives, Songs of the Past harks back to The Witcher 3's greatest strengths while bringing it forward into a new era.

That's felt later on too, as Geralt's monster-slaying silver sword is put to work. In the Garden of Thorns, it's very little time before the local flora and fauna turn against the new arrivals. All three fights I'm shown in Songs of the Past offer something fresh – even the one enemy type that's reminiscent of a Drowner or Nekker has a signature mechanic that requires Geralt to work around its core identity. Thankfully, Geralt has some new moves of his own. Some are subtle – improved combat animations and camera angles let his signature pirouette-style swordplay shine through while helping combat flow a little more naturally. Others are baked into the wider game – an overhauled upgrade system is now far more like an actual skill tree than a linear upgrade path.

Others still are new toys entirely. Geralt's chain – a nod to his very first adventure in the books and a mechanic cut from The Witcher 1 – is an alternative to the base game's crossbows. Flinging it out towards enemies drags them towards Geralt, closing gaps against ranged foes or, in this instance, dragging them out of their defenses to quickly dispatch them.

As Geralt and Lilla move through the garden, there's a sense of how it fits into the wider world of Letten and Songs of the Past. At one point, stumped by a riddle, we're shown a dialogue option that implies Geralt might have learned the solution from an NPC somewhere else in the world. Unwilling to dwell on the puzzle for too long, he hacks his way through the obstacle before him regardless, Doug Cockle's dry portrayal of Geralt's funnier side is as witty as ever. Later on, there's even a hint at a new romance, but we don't get to take that dialogue option, Tost explaining that he's Team Yen all the way.

The real test of Songs of the Past will come when we're let loose within its open world, that being the true test of whether CDPR has managed to recapture the magic of its RPG despite the intervening years. But, what I've seen so far is a very promising start. Even this story-based section seems to fit seamlessly into the existing world of The Witcher 3, while the upcoming remaster's features push much of what made the original game so special even further – and attempt to tighten up its weaker elements.

A new expansion a decade after the last update is the kind of thing very few studios would dare attempt. Even fewer would manage to pull it off. But, combined with the remaster's improvements, the scope of Songs of the Past currently looks set to make this a worthy new addition to The Witcher 3's enviable legacy.

Check out our best RPGs ranking to decide witch to play next!

The actual location of the new The Witcher 3 expansion, Songs of the Past, was revealed as part of Gamescom's Opening Night Live, and it's going to be a gargantuan adventure. Launching 12 years after the RPG's first release, the added gameplay is headed to the bard Dandelion's homeland.

Yes, we're headed to Lettenhove, an idealistic place on the surface that holds some mysteries underneath. "The idyllic realm of Letten is yours to explore," reads the description on the official site. "The homeland of Geralt’s greatest friend, Dandelion the bard, is steeped in rural tradition and full of buried secrets, bringing even more content to one of the most critically-acclaimed RPGs of all time."

This is interesting for several reasons. First, Lettenhove is barely explored in other avenues of The Witcher lore, such as Andrzej Sapkowski's books. It's somewhere CD Projekt Red can approach with complete creative freedom.

Then, there's the possibility this means Dandelion will be a major character. Geralt of Rivia will probably need a guide, right? Or at the very least, his old pal may want to drop in on some acquaintances given the chance.

The scale is another question. Coming so long after The Witcher 3, the expectation is for Songs of the Past to be bigger and more distinct than Blood and Wine. A developer at Gamescom explained further about what to expect.

"Letten is a fully realized open world which you can explore freely, and it's packed with new adventures for Geralt and new quests and characters that live up to our signature mature story," Miles Tost, lead level designer on The Witcher 4, during a gameplay presentation attended by GamesRadar+. "So NPCs like these are a great example of [how] Songs of the Past builds on The Witcher 3's community systems to make them more reactive and alive, and NPCs can now properly use vehicles such as cars, horses, or even fireboats, which is a small thing, but I think adds a lot."

We've known for some time the devs are looking at this as a bridge to The Witcher 4, and it seems like it's going to be a substantive re-entry to The Continent. Songs of the Past comes out in 2027.

Blizzard and CD Projekt Red team up for Diablo 4 Geralt skin and The Witcher 3 on Battle.net

Yesterday brought us Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026, which saw the reveal of various new games – and, perhaps most excitingly of all, a first look at The Witcher 3 Remastered as well as CD Projekt Red's new DLC for the RPG, Songs of the Past.

In case you missed it, the showcase outlined some of what we can expect to see in the new revamped take on The Witcher 3 come its release on September 29, from "improved combat" to overhauled visuals – and much, much more.

GamesRadar+ got to hear more about it all from Miles Tost, level design lead on The Witcher 4, starting with how the combat system is indeed going "to be much more smooth and precise."

Tost shows it in action, too, and boy, is it smooth – and there's quite a lot at play that makes it so. "We updated the camera system, character animations, sign visuals, a lot of things to make it feel more modern," as the lead puts it.

There's "cleaner foliage, improved rendering and lighting, advanced ray tracing" as well – "it really, really tries to stand up to today's games," basically, and as much is obvious from what we witness of the remaster.

As per PC Gamer, CD Projekt Red had quite a lot in mind while tweaking The Witcher 3 Remastered's improvements – including new players.

Executive producer of external projects Jakub Kutrzuba states as much: "We're mostly thinking about new players, you know? We're looking at The Witcher from that perspective – so what would be the biggest pain points? What would a player expect to be changed in order to enjoy the game?"

And, echoing Tost's own words, what would The Witcher 3 feel like "if it was a game which released in 2026?" Well, there's the smoother combat – but there's also more player freedom.

"You can change target while playing the animation or performing strikes, and it gives the game a kind of freshness," for instance, as studio head Adam Badowski explains. And CD Projekt Red put a lot of work into this whole "freshness" thing.

"We put a lot of our time into how the game actually plays…" Kutrzuba confirms. "We went through all of them and asked ourselves, 'What can we do about it, without rebuilding the game from scratch?' And we have changed a lot… the game just plays smoother, you know? There's no immersion-breakers anymore."

I, for one, am thrilled to hear that. I mean, who wants their immersion to be broken in an RPG, right?

The Witcher 3 is already admittedly pretty good at handling that as it is now, so we're thrilled to experience how much better it might be come the remaster next month. Something tells me it'll be a massive leap, considering everything CD Projekt Red says.

Blizzard and CD Projekt Red team up for Diablo 4 Geralt skin and The Witcher 3 on Battle.net

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered was the big "one more thing" announcement closing out today's Gamescom Opening Night Live showcase, and while there's an extremely wide array of new features in this release, one stands out above all the others: better combat. The often limp, floaty fighting of the 2015 original has been a sticking point since launch, and it seems that's a key point of emphasis in this remaster.

"Feel every swing, sign, and dodge like never before," the remaster's official website promises in the "improved combat" section. "With revamped animations, brutal new finishers, and an adaptive camera, the action feels more dynamic, fluid, and kinetic."

All good stuff, even if it is a bit vague. The trailer is slightly more detailed, noting additions like "new Witcher signs FX" and "enhanced monster behaviors." Add to that "revamped mount handling" and "improved traversal and movement" and you have a game that should feel a whole lot better in its moment-to-moment action.

Of course, lightweight combat was never really an obstacle to my enjoyment of The Witcher 3 around its original launch, and it hasn't stopped the game from being widely regarded as one of the best RPGs of all time. But it's good to see that, if CD Projekt Red is taking the time to polish up The Witcher 3 for a new remaster, it's giving some extra attention to one of the game's weaker elements.

We should get a better sense of what to expect from these changes soon enough, as CD Projekt Red is hosting a series of streams offering a look at the upcoming Songs of the Past DLC as well as the new remaster features, and an extended demo will be presented to players at Gamescom. The rest of us will have to wait until September 29 to go hands-on with the remaster, which will arrive as a free upgrade to all existing Witcher 3 owners on current-gen platforms.

The Witcher 3's Songs of the Past DLC includes a nod to CD Projekt Red's original 2007 RPG and its source books as Geralt wields a new silver chain.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered was the big surprise at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026, with CD Projekt Red bringing a shotgun blast of upgrades to all players in a free update coming September 29.

The headliners include updated combat, enhanced visuals, and polished movement, but the remaster's reveal trailer also crammed in a staggering 30 improvements that sound mighty impactful. Depending on how you play or what you care about, these might even be among the most important bits.

Here's the list of additions and upgrades teased in the extremely brief "and more" section of the reveal trailer.

• Cross-platform mod support
• Immersive meditation
• Refined animations
• New quest tracking
• UI improvements
• Looting rework
• Refreshed motion blur
• New accessibility features
• Updated textures
• Foliage shading rework
• Tutorial modernization
• HDR improvements
• GTAO
• Improved menu navigation
• Ray tracing improvements
• Global lighting rework
• New shading model
• Subsurface scattering
• New tone mapper
• PS5 Pro support
• Xbox Play Anywhere support
• Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive features
• Nvidia DLSS 4.5
• AMD FSR 4
• Intel XESS 2.0
• Path tracing on PC
• Ray reconstruction on PC
• Raytraced hair
• Native DX12
• Rendering parallelization

Whew. I've parsed a lot of marketing gobbledygook in 13 years of game journalism, and this is one of those rare instances where the phrase "and so much more" actually feels pretty earned.

The shape and scope of a lot of this remains to be seen, and graphical bells and whistles like path tracing can be swept under the "upgraded visuals" umbrella, but this is a pretty substantial list. I'm especially excited by the new quest tracking, UI improvements, looting rework, and menu navigation. The combat and skill tree polish is nice in an obvious way, but depending on how they shake out, these UI fixes could have an even bigger cumulative effect on your average Witcher 3 playthrough.

The Witcher 3's Songs of the Past DLC includes a nod to CD Projekt Red's original 2007 RPG and its source books as Geralt wields a new silver chain.

Tonight's big Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 showcase provided us with a neat glimpse of many, many exciting new games underway – and, perhaps best of all, The Witcher 3's own big Songs of the Past DLC.

Yep, we actually have finally seen Geralt front and center in the DLC, and I couldn't be more excited after watching CD Projekt Red's new teaser trailer myself. It contains a first look at the protagonist wielding silver chains – a weapon he hasn't used since the opening of the original 2007 Witcher RPG, nearly two decades ago now.

It's kind of a huge deal, to say the least, seeing as we've only witnessed Geralt with a silver chain in that cinematic and in The Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski, where he used one against Adda when she was reborn as a Striga.

That's not all we see of Songs of the Past, either. Those Belleteyn theories that had folks convinced we'd finally get to experience the massive celebratory fertility festival (you know, Beltane, basically)?

It sure looks like they're ringing true, as Geralt can be seen in the midst of Belleteyn's festivities in CD Projekt Red's new trailer. Yet another first (sort of, anyway, seeing as we never got to actually wield chains ourselves) for Witcher gamers – and I'm so here for it.

The DLC isn't the only exciting news we got at Gamescom 2026 about The Witcher 3, however. We also got to see The Witcher 3 Remastered (yes, you read that right) in action, with all of its improved visuals, combat tweaks, reworked skill trees, and much more. It's never been a better time to be a Witcher stan, basically.

All of this and the fact that The Witcher 4 is still underway, too – along with the other upcoming CD Projekt Red games, of course. Please don't pinch me if this is all a silly little dream... I don't want to wake up.

The Witcher 3 devs tried to give NPCs "fear reactions" but it got cut after a few horrifying weeks when "women were just dropping their babies, left and right"

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered is coming September 29, bringing sweeping graphical and mechanical improvements to the storied RPG. It will be a free upgrade to all existing owners on PC and consoles.

Developer CD Projekt Red announced The Witcher 3's surprise remaster at today's Gamescom Opening Night Live show alongside a brief look at upcoming expansion Songs of the Past.

Remaster may be selling it short. CD Projekt Red teases "upgraded visuals, enhanced combat, improved traversal and movement, new Witcher sign [effects], revamped mount handling, enhanced monster behaviors, skill tree revamp, transmogrification, expanded photo mode, new finishers, and so much more."

All The Witcher 3 expansions will also be included with the remaster, as everyone's getting Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine for free today, August 25.

Level design lead Miles Tost took the stage at Gamescom to discuss this big Witcher push from CDPR. "You can tell that the team definitely poured their hearts into this one. It's this huge privilege for me to stand here and represent them," he says.

"Features! My favorite one is the visuals. New textures, updated rendering, advanced path tracing, foliage, you name it," he continues. "Geralt has never looked this good, even after all those years of retirement.

"The other thing, definitely: combat. It's more modern, smooth, and precise. We updated [the] camera, targeting system, added new animations, and what I like a lot, new finishers. And then, last one: The Witcher 3's a full-fledged RPG right? So we've completely revamped the ability system to give players more options."

Warlock, the next big D&D game to come after Baldur's Gate 3, just showed off nearly 10 minutes of its Dragon's Dogma-style gameplay – and I can't wait to play next year.

CD Projekt Red has confirmed that it currently plans to release The Witcher 4 in 2028. Joint CEO Michał Nowakowski says that the game will not be shown at Gamescom this week, but he does give fans some superlative teasers about the RPG's scope and ambition.

"Our team here at CD Projekt Red HQ is hard at work on a brand new saga, one with Ciri at the helm," Nowakowski says in a video message shared with fans on social media. "We have more than 500 incredibly talented developers working to create something truly special for you. The Witcher 4 features a huge and immersive open world, intense and action-packed gameplay, and a deep, impactful story that we hope will stay with you for a long time."

While we will see The Witcher 3's new expansion, Songs of the Past, at Gamescom Opening Night Live on August 25, Nowakowski confirms as part of this message that The Witcher 4 will not be at the show.

To our beloved fans, players, and community:As we near #gamescom in just a few days, CD PROJEKT RED Joint-CEO Michał Nowakowski would like to personally invite YOU to join us there, and hear about the future of The Witcher franchise!

— @thewitcher.com (@thewitcher.com.bsky.social) 2026-08-24T17:03:17.915Z

"Simply put, this is our biggest, boldest, and most ambitious game to date. Now, I know you're eager to learn when it's coming. That's the question we're hearing from you all the time. So while we're not showing The Witcher 4 at the event, and we're not ready to share an exact date, I can tell you this… The Witcher 4 is targeting a 2028 release window. I know it's a bit of a wait and you'd love to play it sooner, but let the team cook. It will be worth the wait."

Put some extra emphasis on "targeting" there, because given the scale of AAA game development, it would almost be more surprising if CD Projekt Red is able to finish the game by this initial target date. The studio delayed Cyberpunk 2077 no fewer than thee times, and given its state at launch, it probably should have been delayed even further.

I've no doubt that CDPR wants to avoid another Cyberpunk situation, so I'd expect the studio to take every second of time necessary to ensure that The Witcher 4 launches in the best state it can. And while 2028 might seem miles away, look at it this way: The Witcher 4 will probably still come out before The Elder Scrolls 6.

Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 predictions: 5 games we'd like to see.

After 11 years, The Witcher 3 might finally let us experience Belleteyn firsthand in new DLC, Songs of the Past – if a Gamescom booth from CD Projekt Red offers anything to go by.

Belleteyn has sadly only been mentioned by the developer in The Witcher 3 thus far, as a massive celebratory fertility festival with food, drink, love, and you name it (think Beltane, its real-world Gaelic counterpart).

Interestingly enough, however, it is the birthday of Yennefer, and in The Witcher books, Geralt believes it's also around the same time that Ciri herself was born… so, yeah, it's a pretty big deal.

Why do we think we might get to witness Belleteyn in all of its glory come Songs of the Past, though? Well, it just so happens that Gamescom 2026 is upon us and CD Projekt Red's booth artwork at the annual event appears to show a scene from Belleteyn – fire, festivities, and the like by the water.

It's already caught the eye of excited fans, too, with one post on X reading, "That looks like Belleteyn." Indeed, it does.

Over on Reddit, theories are running wild as well, as a picture of the Gamescom booth has folks convinced it is, in fact, referencing Belleteyn.

The top response literally just says "Belleteyn," so there you have it. Another chimes in, "Looks like there might be Belleteyn festivities artwork on the left side," further solidifying that the festival is what's on all of our minds – but this isn't the first time it's presence in Songs of the Past has been proposed.

A solid five months ago now, a separate thread on the website saw somebody note, "I noticed an X post, it talks about Geralt's sword (surprisingly his THIRD sword here since he already has two on his back) being the exact same one he had next to him during Belleteyn, which is a major spring and fertility festival that corresponds to the real-world Celtic Holiday of Beltane."

This older theorizing stems from older Songs of the Past artwork showing the sword.

So, could this all truly tease some sort of Belleteyn festivities in Songs of the Past? I certainly hope so, but I suppose only time will tell – and the DLC is set to launch in 2027.

The Witcher 3 devs tried to give NPCs "fear reactions" but it got cut after a few horrifying weeks when "women were just dropping their babies, left and right"

There's a lot going on in The Witcher 3, but for as much as we see in Geralt's quest, there's plenty that didn't make the cut. One mechanic was a way for NPCs to show they were afraid of something, which got the cutting-room-floor treatment because people were, um, throwing away their children.

Philipp Weber, a quest designer on The Witcher 3, explains what happened. "Because we were focused on the countryside, it was easier for players to become curious," he tells Edge magazine.

"If a village only has eight houses, people will want to see if the people truly exist in the world or if it's just fakery," he continues. "Lots of people nowadays are interested in those kinds of details, and it really came to haunt us."

In 2026, creating scripts and pathways for a small rural community would be easy, but in 2012, it was a whole process. "We were more focused on simulating their proper day and night cycle," he remembers. "And when it came to actually reacting to the player there wasn't that much detail."

Rather than giving each a particular cycle, they made them rotate between particular activities. One might be cutting wood, then might go inside to eat, or walk elsewhere. This made places seem bustling, and prevented NPC congestion. "For the 50 sailors at Novigrad harbour, for example, we made 200 possible spots, so even if all 50 were active at the same time, they would have options," Weber says.

But then, once it came to making these characters terrified of something, it all went awry. "Our NPCs were supposed to have fear reactions," he reveals. "They would drop what they're currently working on, that thing would fall to the ground, and they'd run away, afraid. The problem was that one of the 'works' that mothers could do was to hold and cradle a baby. For a few weeks, women were just dropping their babies, left and right."

That's hilarious, in a particularly morbid kind of way, but definitely not ideal for the vibe CD Projekt Red was going for. Thus, it wound up being taken out entirely. I can only imagine how that looked to the team when they were playing. Personally, I think they could've left it in, just to see what players and reviewers would've noticed.

The Continent could use more laughs, is all I'm saying! I wonder if they figured this out for The Witcher 4 - guess we have to wait to find out.

The Witcher 3 lead says designing for player curiosity "really came to haunt us" when making sure it felt like "people truly exist" in the RPG's villages

CD Projekt Red developers almost painted themselves into a corner early on in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's production since the team were more focused on giving NPCs believable schedules instead of making sure they reacted to the player appropriately, which led to situations where mothers would chuck their babies on the floor at the first sign of trouble.

CD Projekt Red quest designer Philipp Weber described the earlier parts of the open-world game's development in the latest issue of Edge Magazine. "Because we were focused on the countryside, it was easier for players to become curious," he explains. "If a village only has eight houses, people will want to see if the people truly exist in the world or if it's just fakery. Lots of people nowadays are interested in those kinds of details, and it really came to haunt us."

Creating the framework for how NPCs should convincingly behave and react is now much easier for CDPR, but in and around 2012, that was a different story. "Today, if you said 'give me a Witcher 3 village that has eight houses', I could give you that in two hours," Weber says.

At the time, The Witcher 3 studio was "more focused on simulating their proper day and night cycle" and "when it came to actually reacting to the player there wasn't that much detail."

A big is example was NPC's fear reactions. In most open-world games, if you start swinging a sword in a docile village or shooting a gun in the air in Night City, civilians normally drop whatever mundane task they're carrying out and understandably run for their lives. The Witcher 3's villagers were programmed to do the same thing, but that also meant mothers in the game would let their newborns fend for themselves: "For a few weeks, women were just dropping their babies, left and right."

"Most NPCs in villages, we don't give them specific paths," Weber adds. "We give them spots of interest that are available and then they're the ones doing the pathfinding: 'Once I'm done with woodcutting, I'll choose another point, and maybe do carpentry in front of my house'. For the 50 sailors at Novigrad harbour, for example, we made 200 possible spots, so even if all 50 were active at the same time, they would have options."

The Witcher 3's Geralt actor wishes he could "sue every single AI platform" for stealing his voice

So actor Doug Cockle, who's been the smoky voice of Geralt in The Witcher series since the first game in 2007, hates generative AI – join the club, right? Totally, but Cockle is in a unique position when it comes to feuding with the technology notorious for stealing from artists, taking over jobs, and dissolving your neuroplasticity. Generative AI steals audio of his voice as if it's the Sea Witch to his Little Mermaid, and it is hard for a hate to get more personal than that.

That's why, "if I had the power, the money, and the influence," Cockle tells Polygon in a new interview, "I would sue every single AI platform out there with my voice on it. I would sue them into the ground."

Many popular AI chatbot platforms like Character.AI feature Geralt as a companion people can do things like roleplay with, or talk to about their impending divorce. Some like Talkie even feature generated audio that pulls from Cockle's distinct rasp, so that you can hear the "real" Geralt tell you how much he loves your tawny hair and amber eyes, and stuff like that.

Actually, I just watched a YouTube documentary that chronicles a married mother's romance with her Geralt companion bot, who grumbles flirty commands in Cockle's scratchy voice.

I'm sure hearing yourself saying filthy things to a stranger isn't great, but Cockle seems truly disturbed by the more evil way people use AI to strip a real person's sense of self: using AI text-to-speech to create convincing fakes of anything they want. In Cockle's experience, they usually want something disgusting.

He says he wouldn't hypothetically sue AI companies for "money or anything else," but, instead, primarily out of exasperation with being violated in this way.

"They can make Geralt say horrible things," Cockle says. "They could make Geralt a racist. They could make him a misogynist. They could make him have political views that are absolutely horrific."

"I'm being a little bit passionate about this," he continues, "but it is the bugbear of my life at the moment."

I'm not surprised – us normal people have increasing reasons to worry about generative AI ruining our lives, whether through deepfakes, layoffs, or one of the other billion ways the tech seeks to harvest our data, then punish us with it. I imagine for someone like Cockle, whose voice is featured in hundreds of hours of publicly accessible audio through The Witcher games – basically one ginormous database – the threat of AI is much more a reality.

So he reminds those who use AI and create their own made-up realities that, actually, "There are people behind these voices – they're not just digital imprints." Someone needs to tell them – using their real, human voice.

Echoing Palworld dev, video game lawyer says all her clients have anti-AI contracts because gamers hate it and it's a copyright landmine: "I think we're going to see lawsuits."

Update: CD Projekt Red has confirmed the below reported layoffs impacting the team working on the multiplayer Witcher spin-off, Project Sirius.

"We adjusted the size of the Sirius team to reflect the project's needs at this stage of development," a CD Projekt spokesperson tells IGN, confirming that four Boston-based workers and five Warsaw-based employees have left the company. Meanwhile, nine other CDPR employees have been offered the chance to apply for potential roles on other projects in development at the studio.

Original story:

Perhaps standing as one of the least historically healthy upcoming CD Projekt Red games, the mysterious multiplayer Project Sirius is reportedly suffering yet another round of layoffs.

Although we don't know too much about Project Sirius, we do know it's been in the works for a solid four years now under The Molasses Flood and CD Projekt Red… and its teams have already undergone a couple of significant layoff rounds, having taken quite a notable hit back in 2023, "mainly on The Molasses Flood's side."

Now, according to Kotaku, it's all happening yet again.

Apparently, nine developers – albeit unnamed (with no specific roles disclosed) were affected by these most recent layoffs, with Kotaku stating another nine are "in the process of moving to other projects within the studio, alongside a broader shift in development strategy."

It sounds a whole lot like the layoffs a few years back, which were attributed to a "restructure" of sorts as well. Regardless, if true, it's certainly not good news.

As of now, Project Sirius largely remains a mystery in its content. The devs behind it have reworked it a few times now, and CD Projekt Red itself lifted the veil on some sort of free-to-play multiplayer Witcher RPG a couple of months back – but the studio never really confirmed that it was describing Project Sirius.

It's likely that we'll hear more about it soon, though, considering Kotaku's report and its implications.

Here's hoping we end up seeing Project Sirius come to fruition one day – and, if developers have truly been affected by layoffs again, they're able to land on their feet.

Searching for something to wishlist? Here are some of the best new games coming this year and beyond to look forward to.

Although The Witcher 3 protagonist Geralt isn't the most visibly (or audibly, for that matter) emotional character out there, he's still human under all that mutating and magic – and actor Doug Cockle wanted to make sure he didn't lose all of that humanity.

The legendary voice behind Geralt of Rivia explains as much in a new interview with Tom's Guide, echoing what he said back in 2018 – that he "never believed" that the protagonist "had no emotion," even if CD Projekt Red wanted him to come across that way.

At the time, Cockle didn't have any source to work from either, having not read The Witcher books or seen the Polish TV adaptation at that point. He only knew what the developers taught him about Geralt.

"The most frequent note I had," as the actor recalls, "was, 'No emotion, Doug. No emotion. Flatten him out.'" Although Cockle definitely understood the assignment, so to speak, he didn't agree entirely with CD Projekt Red's take on Geralt.

"A character with no emotions at all, how can we, as human beings, relate to that? We're not emotionless creatures." That checks out – and doubly so when it comes to actors.

"We deal in emotions," as Cockle puts it. "That's a big part of telling the story." So, that's precisely what he did with Geralt. "I was like, 'Yes, I know, I get it, I'm trying, but he's got to have some kind of emotional life, or why would we care about him?'"

When it comes to The Witcher 3 protagonist, he was aware of Geralt suppressing his feelings – but also of a "dichotomy in himself" that allowed for more than a completely emotionless character.

"He's an emotional being, he does have emotions, but he tries very hard to not let them dictate the actions that he takes." Ciri, Geralt's adoptive daughter (and upcoming protagonist of The Witcher 4, excitingly enough), serves as proof of this – Geralt makes choices that protect her time and time again. Heck, it's paramount to the entire story in The Witcher 3, to say the least. "If he had no emotions," as Cockle says, "he wouldn't make those choices."

CD Projekt Red eventually warmed up to the actor's interpretation, according to him: "As the series of games went on, the writers became more confident in the idea that he can be an emotional being and still be a little bit of a machine."

That checks out, judging by the journey from Wild Hunt to Blood and Wine – and it's evident enough in Geralt's character. It does beg the question though… how will he sound in Songs of the Past?

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see what the new DLC brings…

CD Projekt Red says The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past, Geralt's first expansion in a decade, will get a proper reveal next month

We'll be getting our first look at The Witcher 3's upcoming expansion, Songs of the Past, during Gamescom 2026, CD Projekt Red has confirmed.

Not only will Songs of the Past be showcased to the public for anyone actually attending Gamescom in Cologne, Germany next month in the form of a "guided presentation," but Geoff Keighley's big Opening Night Live stream on August 25 will see "new information" about the expansion revealed, a press release confirms.

Let's face it, it wouldn't take much to provide us with any new information – all we really know about the expansion – not DLC, CD Projekt Red insists – is that it sounds like it'll be pretty substantial, The Witcher 1 remake studio Fool's Theory is working alongside CDPR on it, and it'll be out next year. We've not actually seen any footage yet, just a nice new image of Geralt, so any glimpse here would be welcome.

The expansion had been rumored for months before its announcement, but it was still quite a surprise to find out it actually exists. After all, The Witcher 3 is now over a decade old, and it's been over 10 years since its last expansion, Blood and Wine, too. Not only that, but The Witcher 4 has been announced, and while that doesn't yet have a release date, it's fair to say that we're not going to be starved of The Witcher content before long – we even have that remake of the first game on the way. Certainly no one is complaining, though.

With Songs of the Past's launch set for 2027, I'd be surprised if we saw an exact release date at Gamescom unless it's planned to arrive early in the year. Regardless, though, it'll be very exciting to have a proper look at it – mark those calendars.

Former Witcher 3 director has just "one request" for CD Projekt Red as it finalizes Songs of the Past expansion.

The Witcher remake developer Fool's Theory is working on under the supervision of CD Projekt Red is going to be open-world, like the fantasy series' more recent installment, The Witcher 3. But, according to the original 2007 game's lead story designer Artur Ganszyniec, it shouldn't be.

Ganszyniec tells Polish website Chip in an interview GamesRadar+ translated with DeepL and Google that converting The Witcher to a spacious open world would make it so "the pace and scale of the entire project would change immediately." He has this nagging theory that more land requires more content – and if you're like me and have played through expansive open worlds like in Shadow of the Erdtree and sighed a spoiled sigh at all the empty plains, you know he's right.

To Ganszyniec, the original Witcher is made more powerful by its snappy narrative and deliberate pacing. "We knew exactly where the player would be," he says, so CD Projekt Red developers could plan environments and cutscenes with a surgeon's intuition. But in an open-world version of the game, Ganszyniec muses, a player could instead grab something like a boat on Lake Vizima and just glide through its fifth act with no regard at all for the 2007 game's ruined old manor and carefully planned challenges.

If that were the case, I wonder if it would even really feel like you were still playing The Witcher 1. And if not, then a 20-year-old game might lose its value in most ways other than as a ploy to sell more copies.

"At some point, a pragmatic question must be asked: when does this multiplication of paths cease to be profitable?" Ganszyniec wonders. "You can invest an infinite amount of time and budget, but will it generate an infinite number of new players?"

In any case, The Witcher remake is going to be open-world. But Ganszyniec's questions are worth sitting with as the video game industry continues to decide if it still values preservation of the past on its journey of wanting infinitely more.

The Witcher 1 Remake made CD Projekt Red realize the "true impact" of not recording its old work: "We had little to no technical knowledge preserved from that time."

Before The Witcher 3 came two predecessors from CD Projekt Red: The Witcher 2 and the series original RPG – an RPG that features one heck of a, erm, unique romance system.

In case you've never played the first Witcher game, the 2007 gem boasts a certain set of cards you can collect that act as… well, sex trophies, basically.

While more modern genre giants like Baldur's Gate 3 have elaborate romantic cutscenes (many of which are indeed NSFW), The Witcher had these romance cards instead – little pieces of art that, much to many fans' dismay, arguably felt a bit shallow in substance.

According to lead story designer Artur Ganszyniec, however, CD Projekt Red opted for the cards because the developers knew they needed romance – The Witcher books do feature romance, after all – but didn't have the resources or ability to create full-blown, lengthy love arcs or animated cutscenes.

He recalls as much in an interview with CHIP (as translated by GameObserver), admitting he's not 100% sure how it all went down.

"Sometimes a feature appears as a result of someone going: in the books, there's lots of romance, so we'll probably need romance, too. Someone creates a list of characters; someone else looks at it productively and says: 'There's no way we're making so many cutscenes.' Then comes the question: 'if the cutscenes are a problem, what do we do? Maybe 2D drawings?'"

That might just be the origin story of the infamous "sex cards," as they're widely known.

"I don't know if that's the exact way it happened," Ganszyniec continues, "but that's how it could have happened. Everyone's responsible for finding solutions to their own problems, and suddenly something's in the game. When something's already made it into a version, it's difficult to remove it."

And, yep – "sometimes it worked as a shortcut." When you have cards instead of scenes, you "understand that it's meant to represent just part of a longer story."

Plus, as the dev puts it, "thanks to the fact that The Witcher was indeterminate and full of shortcuts, the player accepted it." That makes sense, I suppose – and, well, for the most part, folks did.

That's not to say the cards are popular, but it's not as though they soiled The Witcher's reputation. CD Projekt Red worked with the resources it had at the time, and Ganszyniec isn't "ashamed" of the romance cards despite their reception.

"Some of these moments ended up being absurd," though, and he's not afraid to admit as much. "It's just that sometimes you fail to write something good enough – then, you play the game, you read the dialogue, and you see: this did not work." Hey, it happens… right?

Here's hoping The Witcher 4 features a more, uh, immersive romance system, as CD Projekt Red has said it'll "absolutely" be a part of the RPG.

Excited to see more upcoming CD Projekt Red games come to fruition? Browse through our roundup for other great new games arriving this year and beyond, too.

Did you know that CD Projekt is, in fact, a company that's distinct from CD Projekt Red? I did, but that's only because my days are often occupied with polite but firm emails from PR representatives who are quite particular about these sorts of minutiae. Thankfully, the company has recognized that this state of affairs is extremely confusing, and is unifying its name to make things more consistent.

CD Projekt (without the Red) was founded back in 1994 as a distributor bringing foreign video games to the Polish market. CD Projekt Red was founded in 2002, and that name represents the development studio responsible for The Witcher and Cyberpunk games. Over time, the two names became basically synonymous in the minds of players, and while CD Projekt Red was technically a subsidiary of the broader CD Projekt, the company had a heck of a time getting anyone to recognize the difference.

Now, as part of an effort "ensure full brand consistency and facilitate the identification of the Company with its products on the global market," the whole thing is going to be known as CD Projekt Red. The announcement was buried in one of the company's recent reports, but was soon noted by Polish financial site Bankier.pl (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz).

I choose to believe that we – that is, the general gaming world – have bullied the whole of CD Projekt into appending that "Red" by resolutely refusing to recognize the company and its development house as separate entities. Remember when CDPR insisted that The Witcher 4 was not called The Witcher 4, up until the very moment it was confirmed to be called The Witcher 4? Same principle. This is the power of refusing to accept corporate brand guidelines as a restriction on actual language.

Here are all the upcoming CD Projekt Red games you need to know about.

The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 arguably stand the test of time as two of the best RPGs ever developed – and a lot of this stellar reputation boils down to the quality of not just their main stories, but their side missions, too.

Heck, I don't think I'll ever forget the Land of a Thousand Fables – and I'm certainly not alone in feeling that CD Projekt Red does some excellent side stories. In fact, a thread over on Twitter about the developer's stellar "side quests and DLC" has prompted a reply from Paweł Sasko – quest designer on The Witcher 3 and quest design director on Cyberpunk 2077, who now works as associate game director on Cyberpunk 2. According to him, a lot of elbow grease goes into those "side" missions.

"We put a considerable amount of effort into side stories," writes Sasko. "Those most of the time have same budget and production timeline, talented teams, and more creative freedom (by not being tied to main story, mostly)."

Honestly, I'm not surprised to hear that – and in The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, he says, "quality in those was a must," not just a "nice to have" thing. That's not hard to see if you've played either RPG.

The Witcher 3 boasts nearly 200 hours of content (if you include its main story and the side quests), but I've easily poured hundreds more into it myself. Cyberpunk 2077 is similarly lengthy, and a quick browse on Steam shows folks with 1,000+ hours spent in-game leaving reviews.

In other words, many players find themselves lost within CD Projekt Red's various side missions and lively worlds – a testament to the studio's hard work.

It does beg the question – just how expansive will upcoming CD Projekt Red games be, like The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2? I'm willing to bet that they, too, will end up proving some of the greatest RPGs, with much of that falling to their optional content as well as their undoubtedly massive main stories.

Only time can truly tell, however… but for now, I think I'll go replay The Witcher 3 for the umpteenth time.

Joint The Witcher 4 and CD Projekt Red CEO says fully AI-generated games are coming, but he has "some doubts whether this is really the path to follow."

The news that The Witcher 3 is getting a brand-spanking new expansion pack in 2027 might seem bizarre at face value. This is a game that was, by all accounts, settled. But in Songs of the Past, we're going to take old Geralt out for one last spin before Ciri takes the reins in The Witcher 4. What a way to say goodbye to one of the most iconic games of the last few decades.

Over the past ten years or so, we've been seeing a lot more old games getting expansions long after their original release, and I am so here for it. Baldur's Gate got Siege of Dragonspear in 2016, Titan Quest got Ragnarok in 2017. Hell, even Doom 2 got Legacy of Rust in 2024, 30 years after its initial release. As trends go, this one can seem a little self indulgent at first glance. It's easy to write these types of gestures off as cash grabs, rather than fully-fledged works with artistic intent, but you'd be wrong to do that.

Geralt, or the Collapse and Fall of Tech Advances

There are two main reasons that we're seeing developers return to older titles, and neither are as selfish as a cash grab. The first is that the speed of tech advancements has plateaued in recent years, meaning 10-year old games today feel far more playable than those from 20 years ago. This applies to The Witcher 3 specifically, but also to Mario Kart 8's booster courses that massively spiked the number of tracks, and Borderlands 2: Commander Lilith & the Fight for Sanctuary.

Think about games from the 2010s. Do they really look that much worse than games released today? Do they make you wince and gasp at their visuals? Of course not, because the tech plateau means we're more tinkering around the edges rather than creating any grand upgrades, particularly as a lot of titles get significant post-release update support anyway.

The Witcher 3 came out 11 years ago. Think about games that released in 2005, and think if there were any that you'd think still looked almost new in 2016. The closest that you'd come would be maybe Call of Duty 2 for the Xbox 360, but it's still distinctly an older game. If you want to go back even further, and examine the tech plateau from the peak of Mount Build Engine, consider that there are only 11 years between Duke Nukem 3D and Bioshock.

You can go home again

This is only one of the reasons I think older games are getting delayed expansions, though. The second is that we're now seeing some degree of sentimentality emerge from within game development's often frosty heart.

The games that inspired us are still widely played. Diablo 2's recent Reign of the Warlock expansion was clearly a labor of love, made partly by those who grew up on Diablo 2. The same can be said for Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear, likewise for The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past – the expansion is being co-developed by Fool's Theory, the studio behind Witcher-inflected The Thaumaturge and headed by former CD Projekt Red dev Jakub Rokosz.

There is a clear throughline here, one that echoes how the games industry is maturing into something that allows for crosspollination: new games are being made, but studios still want to pay homage to the classics.

There's something special about games that allows for developers to pay their respects or build on the past without necessarily committing to a full reboot. Expansions and DLCs are unique to video games. Books can't release an additional chapter for you to enjoy decades later. You wouldn't see Quentin Tarantino adding another section to Pulp Fiction. Video games also have a leg-up on television and movies, as its characters don't age.

For all of the industry's flaws, the medium itself is flexible in a way that nothing else can be. I love that we're starting to see what happens when developers go back to their principles. Instead of decrying the idea that graphics aren't moving forward, let's appreciate that we are living through a golden age, where titles from a decade ago won't be shunned because they look rough: they hold up without any major touch-ups necessary. Let's appreciate, too, that even older games are having new life breathed into them by devs who grew up loving the original. Me? I'm holding out hope that we'll see a new expansion for Fallout: New Vegas.

The Witcher 3 is one of the best RPGs of all time, and there are plenty more like it.

CD Projekt Red's joint CEO Michał Nowakowski thinks fully AI-generated games are on the way, but being partly in charge of the company behind The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2077, he's not convinced game prompters using generative AI are on the right path.

Speaking to Edge's Knowledge newsletter, Nowakowski mentioned that he "knows for a fact" that games 'made' entirely with generative AI are coming because he's actually had a few chats with AI-based studios.

"I was in a conversation with a person who started a studio and was telling me: 'I'm running a primarily AI-based studio. I can have 40 prototypes within a week, two weeks from now I can have five games that I chose are going to be the best and, three weeks from now, I'm actually launching a game'," Nowakowski recalls. "Maybe that's going to be successful, but I have some doubts whether this is really the path to follow."

The CD Projekt Red executive didn't delve into where his doubts stem from exactly, but elsewhere in the interview, he talked about how the "fight for attention is tougher than it ever was" thanks to the thousands of games that come out every single year - not to mention the films, shows, social media algorithms, and more fighting for our time.

Putting games in front of an audience won't get any easier with the growing amount of games hitting shelves, he continues, "but as long as you have a fresh idea, with a soul, with legs, you should have a genuine shot at being successful." Making a soulful game stand out in a crowd is probably much easier when it's not being prompted by an algorithm, I think.

GamesRadar's Austin Wood recently spoke to over 30 game developers about AI, many of whom pointed to ethical concerns around the tech. It's impact on workers, junior positions, artists whose work are being scraped, legal issues, environmental concerns are just some of the reasons why game devs are raising an eyebrow or two.

The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2077 studio wants to make more games without turning CDPR into a company "that's going to be launching a big game every year"

Joint CD Projekt Red CEO Michał Nowakowski doesn't plan on turning the developer, best known for making games in The Witcher and Cyberpunk series, into a company that pumps out yearly releases.

The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2077's sequel are easily two of the most anticipated new games on the horizon, but part of their allure comes from how infrequently CD Projekt Red launches projects. In an interview published in Edge's Knowledge newsletter, Nowakowski says he wants CDPR games to come out more often without flooding the market.

"Our dream is to be making more games, although we never want to turn into the studio that's going to be launching a big game every year," he says. "It may happen, but this is not the goal. We have a rough ten-year rolling plan, but the goal is not to flood the games market with CDPR games. We just want to make really cool games, and we don't want to have a ton of IPs either. We're not planning to grow in that way."

Looking at the slate of upcoming CD Projekt Red games, the company's vision starts to come into view. The Witcher 3's Songs of the Past expansion is due sometime next year, followed by The Witcher 4 and two sequels hopefully dropping in the following six years. Then there's The Witcher 1 remake that's been quietly cooking for a few years, a multiplayer spin-off game, a Cyberpunk sequel, and a new IP, Project Hadar.

Given the five-year gap between The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 - not to mention the decade-plus-long-wait for an entirely new Witcher game - CDPR's insistence on a more frequent release cadence is understandable. And with so many games in the pipeline, I imagine the company's next 10 years will look a lot busier than its last 10 years, if all goes well.

Don't expect a Witcher 4 expansion: CDPR says "it would be difficult" to make extra content when it's already trying to squeeze 3 Witcher games into 6 years

The Witcher's original Geralt actor Doug Cockle has weighed in on Liam Hemsworth's performance as the White Wolf in Netflix's adaptation. The actor, who voiced the character in CD Projekt Red's video games, shared that he was a big fan of Henry Cavill's replacement.

"It's tough to do what [Hemsworth] did. Really, really tough, especially with a character in a show that so many people adore," Cockle told Polygon. "To be the actor replacing someone else who originated a character in the same series is so difficult."

The actor added that he thinks Cavill "did a fabulous job" but he was also a big fan of Hemsworth's take on the monster slayer. "I find that Henry's performance has a little bit more weight to it and Liam's is a little bit more energized and actually kind of youthful, but in a fun way."

Hemsworth took over the role in The Witcher season 4, following on from Cavill's exit. While the former Superman star has never revealed his exact reasons for departing, his exit did cause disruption among the cast with Ciri actor Freya Allan admitting she almost left as well.

Luckily, she stayed the course as reviews for Hemsworth's take on Geralt have been very positive. The actor will be returning to the role for the final season on Netflix too.

With Cockle, Hemsworth and Cavill all playing the role at different times, the game actor also compared the part to Hamlet, adding that everyone brings something unique to it.

"What I always say about these kinds of things is that every actor has to make a role their own," Cockle added to Polygon. "There have been thousands of people who've played Hamlet, and each Hamlet is different. Every individual brings their own quirks, emotional life, experiences, and ideas to the table and interprets the character through all of that."

The Witcher season 5 will be released at some point in 2026. In the meantime, check out our guides to new TV shows on the way.

With all of the upcoming CD Projekt Red games, I wouldn't think to expect any sort of multiplayer mobile title in The Witcher series akin to Horizon Steel Frontiers – but that's apparently what we might get someday, if recent rumors ring true.

The supposed leaks circulating on the web stem from a new MP1st report that claims an inside source has confirmed a free-to-play, co-op action Witcher RPG is currently in development.

This could apparently be the already-known (albeit mysterious) Project Sirius, but MP1st notes the rumored game is planned for only mobile and PC platforms right now – "with no mention" of console launches.

The alleged game's free-to-play model and standing on mobile "could mirror the scale of Horizon Steel Frontiers," according to the report, and it will be set in the year 1230, when beloved series protagonist Geralt was still young.

We can supposedly also expect customizable Witchers in the rumored title, too, which would make it stand out quite a bit from predecessors… so honestly, I'm not sure I feel too excited about the prospect of... well, any of this.

I don't see how a multiplayer Witcher could mesh with Andrzej Sapkowski's already-established universe CD Projekt Red has expanded upon with its games, as so much of what makes titles like The Witcher 3 great is the immersion and the storytelling. I'm also curious about how the whole customizable Witcher thing would work, seeing as we've only ever played as canon protagonists – and we will continue to do so in The Witcher 4, which lets us play as Ciri.

Over on Reddit, a discussion surrounding the game rumors shows that other folks feel similarly worried. "Well… I mean, the silver lining is they aren't forcing any multiplayer shit into their main title games, I guess," reads one comment. "That's something." Another adds, "Can't wait to not play it and see it closed in less than two years after release." Largely, it seems fans aren't too thrilled.

It's hard to consider a free-to-play multiplayer game joining a series best known for its huge open-world, story-focused RPGs, after all. But I suppose that all we can do for now is keep our fingers crossed that somehow – should it be real – the rumored game is good.

Searching for something to wishlist? Here are some of the best new games coming this year and beyond to look forward to.

With The Witcher 3 on all our minds as the RPG's new expansion (no, not DLC, y'all), Songs of the Past, is underway, former CD Projekt Red developers remain as hopeful as we do that it'll prove to be well-done.

Speaking with GamesRadar+ in a recent interview at Summer Game Fest, Rebel Wolves – the team made up of CD Projekt Red veterans currently working on vampire RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker – CEO Konrad Tomaszkiewicz shares his thoughts on Songs of the Past. It's an interesting statement for sure, seeing as Tomaszkiewicz approaches his words as someone who worked on The Witcher 3 and its two previous expansions.

"I've never played The Witcher games as a player," admits the dev. "Because, when you work on the first Witcher, second Witcher, third Witcher, both expansions," it's not the same as it is for normal fans.

"I was the developer playing it all the time," as Tomaszkiewicz puts it. "I couldn't play The Witcher 3 right now, even from the start, because I saw it too many times." Honestly, I get it – it must've been tiring to even consider.

When it comes to Songs of the Past, though, things are a bit different. Tomaszkiewicz didn't work on it himself, after all, so he finally gets to approach it as a player rather than a dev – and, in turn, he hopes the expansion is good… just like the rest of us do.

"I hope this expansion will be good," he says. "I will play it [for the] first time as a player. And I only have one request… how to say it politely… to do it good."

Again, I'd wager the majority of the community feels that way right now, too. CD Projekt Red has been hyping the expansion up as well, making it all the more exciting – for us fans and former devs of The Witcher 3, apparently.

We are discussing a title that's not just one of (if not the) best Witcher games, but one of the best RPGs to date, so it's unsurprising that expectations are high. For what it's worth, I'm thinking it'll deliver, personally.

Excited to see more upcoming CD Projekt Red games come to fruition? Browse through our roundup for other great new games arriving this year and beyond, too.

If you're familiar with The Witcher 3, you no doubt know what happens when you start killing cows – the Chort shows up to make Geralt's life harder. 11 years after launch, a quest designer on the fantasy RPG has explained what went into that decision, and it turns out we only have ourselves to blame.

It's actually a preventive measure, taken after CD Projekt Red noticed we could farm cow hides thanks to a fast respawn rate. "We could have fixed that cow hide farming exploit in few minutes bonbons, just kill the respawn or drop the price of the hides," Paweł Sasko, a quest designer on The Witcher 3, says on Twitter.

"But that's not how we roll," he adds. "Designer's job is to create fun, not delete it. So we added a Chort instead."

He adds this to a clip of Geralt driving his sword into unsuspecting cattle, only to be met by one of these ferocious beasts. As the saying goes, eff around and find out – the big bad Witcher himself is taken down in unceremonious fashion.

But let it be known, CD Projekt was technically doing you a favour. "Chort hide is double the price of cow hide, not by a coincidence. We saw you farming, so we raised the stakes," Sasko explains.

You want that gold? Get good. Earn it. Bovine prey is easy. Go for the real prize if you're on the hunt. This has long been a running joke within the community, and CD Projekt embraced the hilarity in suitable fashion.

"Later Bovine Defense Force became a Gwent card (cow leaves the battlefield, Chort arrives)," Sasko says. "And then, we made something special in Hearts of Stone. Taxman Walthemor Mitty shows up at 35K orens and asks Geralt point blank whether he was involved in the wholesale rawhide trade in White Orchard."

Sasko, who's now associate game director on Cyberpunk 2, reveals how this whole episode stems from his own philosophy on game development. "Don't patch the fun out, find a way to escalate it, engage with fun dialog with the players, surprise and delight," he finishes.

CD Projekt Red veteran answers for the crime of The Witcher 3's Skellige, says they tried to add more question marks but couldn't.

Between The Witcher 3's Skellige isles and the Trial of the Grasses, it's hard to say which caused Geralt more pain. The area is notorious among completionists for being both incredibly dense and remarkably fruitless – packed with question marks to hunt down to tidy up the map, including a lot in the freakin' sea, but not overflowing with interesting or valuable stuff to find.

Paweł Sasko, a CD Projekt Red veteran now known as associate game director of Cyberpunk 2 and previously as lead quest designer on Cyberpunk 2077, has been with CDPR since its Witcher 3 days. Back then, he was also working as a quest designer, albeit more junior. Sasko waded into a recent discussion among Polish fans chatting about Skellige, and I honestly can't tell if he's joking in his response.

A DeepL translation of a recent Twitter post reads, "Couldn't they have crammed even more question marks into Skellige?" Which is kind of like asking, couldn't they have put more sodium in this pork ramen broth?

Sasko pulled no punches in his reply. "We tried," a translation reads, "but it was no use." A separate machine translation differs slightly: "We tried, but it was no longer possible." Either way, this is a frightening read.

The thing is, Sasko is very active in the CDPR community, regularly replying to fans online when they share stories, criticism, questions, or jokes about The Witcher or Cyberpunk. His responses are a mix of interesting trivia and dev insights, and blatant but good-natured trolling. Gun to my head, I couldn't tell you where this answer falls. I would readily believe that CDPR tried to pack more bullshit into Skellige but feasibly could not, and the evidence is plain as day: they made Skellige. Once you've put 10,000 question marks in the ass end of nowhere, what's 10,001? The point where even the game engine starts to lose it, perhaps.

After CD Projekt Red announced a surprise expansion for The Witcher 3, over 29,000 Steam players booted up the RPG – the most in months.

The Witcher 3 still holds up as one of the best open-world games ever made some 11 years after its release, and arguably its best expansion, Blood and Wine, is exemplary of some of the game's finest quest design and writing. That's not just me saying that, by the way, as developer CD Projekt Red is on the record as saying the expansion itself is right up there with the studio's best work.

In a tweet celebrating 10 years of Blood and Wine, CDPR takes a trip down memory lane. "From the peaceful halls of Corvo Bianco to the battle under a full moon, Blood and Wine remains one of our most unforgettable projects," CDPR says. "Today, we raise a glass to the stories, characters, and battles that made Toussaint a place like no other. Thank you for joining us on this journey! Here's to a decade of adventure."

It's a testament to the gorgeous region of Toussaint and the writing itself that, even after Cyberpunk 2077 transformed itself from the janky mess it was at launch to one of the most celebrated open-world games of the 2020s, Blood and Wine is still widely considered one of CDPR's best projects.

Of course, it's old news by now that The Witcher 3 is getting a surprise new expansion next year, coincidentally 11 years after Blood and Wine, aptly titled Songs of the Past. We also know The Witcher 4 is on the way without an official release date, making The Witcher 3 (with or without Blood and Wine) the perfect game to play or revisit while you wait for those and all of the other upcoming CDPR games we know are in development.

After Witcher 3's new expansion, CD Projekt Red teases more "unannounced projects" are at "advanced stages of development" and could release this year

A new Witcher 3 expansion, Songs of the Past, was hurriedly announced on May 27 after CD Projekt Red accidentally leaked its own reveal ahead of schedule. On May 29, the Steam player count for The Witcher 3 jumped to 29,166 – one of the highest points seen all year, and a peak ahead of several months as far back as 2020, according to SteamDB.

As CDPR superfan Alox noted, this is the biggest Steam spike The Witcher 3 has seen since February 22, back when it was part of the Steam Lunar Sale and discounted down to just $7.99.

There's a strong correlation between discounts and player counts on Steam, but big news or updates can also bring fans back. May saw no such discount for The Witcher 3 (technically, an April Medieval Fest discount lasted until the very start of the month), nor did it have new content ready to play, but it still managed a sharp jump in players for the 10th anniversary of the game's Blood and Wine expansion.

I'd wager that a small portion of those players were fans excitedly booting up the game to see if Songs of the Past was already out. It feels very much like the kind of thing a studio might shadow-drop, but the expansion is actually coming in 2027 and will serve as a snacky prologue while The Witcher 4 brews.

The studio has described Songs of the Past as a "trip down memory lane" for Geralt before Ciri takes the protagonist chair in The Witcher 4 and its trilogy. Somehow, CDPR hopes to have all three games in this new saga shipped within six years of each other, which would be quite a feat indeed, even if the company wasn't also juggling Cyberpunk 2 and multiple other projects. Cyberpunk 2 won't repeat the production mistakes of Cyberpunk 2077, studio veteran Adrian Fulneczek said, stressing that the company has "learned our lesson."

Don't expect a Witcher 4 expansion: CDPR says "it would be difficult" to make extra content when it's already trying to squeeze 3 Witcher games into 6 years.

The Witcher 3 fans think they have already figured out where the upcoming Songs of the Past expansion will take place.

After months of speculation, CD Projekt Red finally confirmed that The Witcher 3 will be getting a brand new DLC expansion over a decade since the game first released, with the announcement of Songs of the Past. This expansion is set to launch in 2027, and from the sounds of things, it'll be one last ride with the iconic RPG before Geralt leaves the protagonist role to Ciri in The Witcher 4… whenever that's going to come out.

But overall, we don't really know all that much about the upcoming expansion, except that it's going to herald a change to the game's system requirements and will, unfortunately, be leaving Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PS4 players behind. Also, that it's "an expansion," and a "major" release on par with the likes of Blood and Wine.

However, despite the lack of info, sleuths within the fanbase have seemingly already figured out major details about the expansion. YouTube creator Neon Knight noticed that the sword Geralt is holding in the Songs of the Past key art is Melltith, evidenced by its flower-like pommel. These swords are a piece of elven sword design, as they can be found on other elven swords throughout The Witcher 3, which in turn has led Knight to believe that Songs of the Past will be set in Cidaris, which was built on the ruins of an elven city.

On top of this, in April, CD Projekt Red released artwork featuring the same sword, celebrating Belleteyn (its own take on the Gaelic holiday Beltane), which, what do you know, is celebrated in the elven calendar in The Witcher. We're through the looking glass here, people.

"Not enough time, can't afford it": The Witcher 3 lead recalls "hardcore" dev timeline of the RPG's past expansions, says CDPR had to "change strategy" with Blood and Wine