The Witcher 3 Remaster: What's Actually Free, What Isn't, and Why Songs of the Past Waits Until 2027

Published 10 September 2026. Words like "tonight" or "next week" refer to that date.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt isn't finished with us yet, 11 years after this came out, after most of us finished it, replayed it, bought it again on another console, and probably spent an embarrassing amount of time playing Gwent instead of actually looking for Ciri. CD Projekt Red has more Witcher 3 coming. The Songs of the Past teaser did 2.3 million views in four days. Gamescom footage picked up another 1.1 million views in four hours, which suggests plenty of people still feel something the second a slightly melancholy lute plays over footage of Geralt.

I should declare my bias here. I have put more hours into this game than basically any other, and Wild Hunt is still the crown jewel of gaming for me. That is exactly why I need to be careful, because CD Projekt Red could release a seventeen second trailer of Geralt ordering a pint and complaining about his knees and I would be halfway through downloading the game again before he finished the sentence. So the question isn't whether I'm excited, because I am. It's whether starting another enormous playthrough right now actually makes sense.

Three separate announcements got bundled into one reveal

The confusion comes from three different things being announced together. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered is a free upgrade for existing owners, released on 29 September. Nobody is buying the game a fourth time just because the puddles are shinier, even though historically I am exactly the sort of person publishers rely on for that business model.

Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, the proper expansions rather than cosmetic DLC, are also going free with the remaster. Songs of the Past, meanwhile, is a completely new paid expansion, but that isn't arriving until 2027. Two free things this month, one new paid thing over a year away, and it genuinely blurred together for me too. My brain just went "Witcher 3, new stuff, got it, Geralt's back, 2027," and then had to stop and ask where my sword actually was. You don't need to spend a penny this month. The more dangerous question is whether you should reinstall it anyway.

CD Projekt Red isn't finished with this rollout either. There is still no price for Songs of the Past, and a full remake of the original game is coming down the same road.

The remaster changes traversal, sign effects and Roach handling, but three things matter most to me

The listed changes include traversal, sign effects and Roach handling, though that could mean anything from slightly improved horse controls to Roach no longer appearing on a cottage roof because you whistled for him. There's also better monster AI, new finishers, and an expanded photo mode.

Three things matter to me more than the rest. Combat, because I just want it smoother, less like stirring a wardrobe through someone's living room. The skill tree, because I liked building without needing three tutorials and a spreadsheet open beside me. And transmog, finally, because looking cool is at least 40 percent of an RPG and I refuse to accept otherwise. No more brilliant armor that makes Geralt look like he's been dressed by his nan.

I'll take better graphics obviously, but I never stopped playing this game thinking the trees needed four million more polygons. Better combat and more freedom with builds is what makes a replay feel different. Everything else is gravy, very pretty ray traced gravy.

PS4 and Xbox One owners are left out of the free upgrade

The remaster is covered on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Switch owners get it on Switch too. What isn't covered is PS4 or Xbox One, so you would need current hardware first. A free upgrade for existing owners sounds simple until your particular ownership doesn't count.

I moved from Xbox to PlayStation years ago, so this bit doesn't excite me personally, but I think they handled it fairly. Eleven years is a decent stretch before somebody says you've done enough and can rest. Your game hasn't got worse overnight, just check what you actually own before you get your hopes up.

Songs of the Past sends Geralt to Dandelion's homeland, Lettenhove

The expansion I'm most interested in is Songs of the Past, taking Geralt to a brand new region called Lettenhove. If you've read the books that name rings a bell, because Dandelion's full name is Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove, and Lettenhove is his homeland.

I have always liked Witcher stories that dig into the world that already exists rather than bolting something unrelated on, and Geralt and Dandelion's friendship makes no sense on paper. Geralt is a miserable mutant who communicates mainly through sighing, and Dandelion is the medieval equivalent of the friend who says he's only out for one drink and six hours later you're explaining something to the police. CD Projekt Red has said Ciri took up so much focus in the base game that there was space to properly explore this friendship, so Songs of the Past is set to fix that. Dandelion has gone missing, and Geralt gets dragged into his family history.

There's a new weapon, a new chain, and a look back at Geralt's history including his fight against the Striga. There's also Lila, Dandelion's cousin, with journalists reportedly spotting romance flavored dialogue options that developers wouldn't confirm or deny. I'm not calling that confirmed, because we all know how fast a developer's refusal to answer becomes a confirmed headline, but there's clearly something going on there. CD Projekt Red has been particular that this is an expansion, not a DLC, comparable in size to Blood and Wine, which is a substantial statement given that expansion wasn't exactly Geralt running three errands. There's no confirmed price yet, though a Gamescom bundle reportedly valued it around 40 dollars including merchandise, and I wouldn't move money between accounts based on somebody pricing a Witcher tote bag.

Whether your old choices still matter, and why an imperfect save is fine

Lettenhove sits in northern Redanian territory, and depending on your choices the politics there could look very different, with Radovid, Dijkstra or Nilfgaard potentially running things. That's not a minor cosmetic difference, that's potentially deciding who runs half the continent. From what's been said, there's some acknowledgement but not much, the same way Blood and Wine referenced your choices without becoming a different expansion. The war itself apparently didn't reach Lettenhove either.

I actually quite like that uncertainty. I still remember the Bloody Baron storyline being the point this game properly got its claws into me, going in expecting standard RPG stuff, a man's family disappeared, find them, kill a monster, collect experience points. Instead I ended up in a courtyard with a horrifying little botchling, the Baron telling me what actually happened to his family, dragged off to Crookback Bog to meet three terrifying old women. That's the point I realized the choices in this game weren't press X to be nice and press Y to be terrible. Sometimes you genuinely didn't know the right thing, made what felt like a sensible choice, and discovered hours later you'd condemned an entire village.

That's why I'm not remotely interested in a perfect save before Songs of the Past. Some of my favorite memories of this game came from not knowing what was going to happen. You'll need to have finished the main story before Songs of the Past unlocks, so an old save just needs finishing, not perfecting. I couldn't tell you every political decision I made across every playthrough, and I'm not spending 100 hours building an optimal geopolitical save just in case a man in Lettenhove has three different lines of dialogue. If Dijkstra is running Redania because past me thought that was sensible, current me can deal with that.

Why this is all happening now, eleven years after release

A remaster, a massive expansion, new platforms, all while CD Projekt Red also works on Witcher 4, isn't a coincidence. One studio connects a lot of it, Fools Theory, who are also remaking the original game and helping build Witcher 4. Songs of the Past was originally planned for 2026 and has been pushed to 2027 to achieve the best possible results.

Normally a delay makes part of my brain worry everything's on fire, but with CD Projekt Red, after Cyberpunk, I would rather they delayed. We've seen the version where the release date becomes sacred and the game comes out whether it's ready or not, especially once you've volunteered yourself to be compared with Blood and Wine. Knowing this leads toward Witcher 4 does make me more excited, but not because I need twelve months of trailers. Give me the remastered game, another proper Geralt story, the original rebuilt properly, and then show me Witcher 4 when it's actually ready. I'm already sold on that game.

What I'm actually going to do

If you already own it, reinstall on the 29th for the remaster plus Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, basically no downside other than the fairly significant risk you look up three days later and realize you've spent 14 hours playing Gwent and haven't seen your family since Tuesday. If you've never played it, this might be the best time there's ever been to start.

Should you wait for Songs of the Past first? No. Don't spend the next year building some perfect save where every king is alive. Just play it, make your choices, live with them, because that's half the reason this game is so good in the first place. I'm going back in myself. I've convinced myself several times this playthrough would be different. It won't. Same decisions, same signs, same Gwent deck, because apparently personal growth has limits. I'm not going back to prepare for Songs of the Past, I'm going back because this is still one of my favorite games ever made, and on the 29th they're giving me a very good excuse to experience it again.

Eleven years after this game came out, I didn't think we'd ever be able to say Geralt gets one more adventure next year. So which one do you think holds up better, Hearts of Stone or Blood and Wine?