The Witcher 3's New Expansion Was Written Years Ago — Then Shelved
The story behind The Witcher 3's upcoming expansion Songs of the Past was conceived years ago by writers who worked on the original game, then set aside before eventually resurfacing for development.
Writers Ola Motyka and Philip Weber, who both contributed to the base game's script, first dreamed up the tale long before the expansion entered production. Fool's Theory CEO Jakub Rokosz told Eurogamer in a Gamescom interview that the story was put aside years ago and later resurfaced before the studio began working on it. The detail offers a rare glimpse into how a major expansion can trace its roots back to ideas that nearly stayed on the cutting-room floor.
Songs of the Past is the third expansion for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the open-world role-playing game from Polish studio CD Projekt Red. It sends Geralt of Rivia to a new location called Letten, where his close friend Dandelion — the bard who accompanies him through much of the series — goes missing. CD Projekt Red senior quest designer Despoina Anetaki told Eurogamer that while the story is original, it draws on the deep friendship between Geralt and Dandelion as portrayed in Andrzej Sapkowski's original Witcher novels.
The expansion is being co-developed by CD Projekt Red and Fool's Theory. CD Projekt Red joint CEO Michał Nowakowski described Fool's Theory as arguably the primary developer during an earnings call, according to Eurogamer. Fool's Theory, founded in 2015 by veterans who left leading studios to set up shop near the Beskidy mountains in southern Poland, developed The Thaumaturge and contributed to Divinity: Original Sin 2 and the Silent Hill 2 remake.
Songs of the Past will launch in 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, roughly 11 years after the base game's original release. It is available to wishlist now across all three platforms.
CD Projekt Red has also announced The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered, which launches on 29 September 2026, according to the company's press site.
For fans, the appeal is straightforward: a new Witcher adventure with Geralt and Dandelion, written by people who shaped the original game, arriving more than a decade after players first rode across the Continent. The fact that the story existed in some form all those years — waiting for the right moment and the right studio to bring it to life — adds a layer of its own.
Before its formal announcement, all that was publicly known about the expansion was that it starred Geralt, was co-developed by Fool's Theory, and would release in 2027. Gamescom 2026 brought the first real details.
