Good news if you already own The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: the upcoming Remastered edition, which overhauls visuals, combat, enemy behaviour, horse riding, and skill trees across the now 11-year-old RPG, is a free upgrade. And here's the thing, charging for it was never even a consideration at CD Projekt Red.
Why the remaster was always going to be free
CD Projekt Red joint-CEO Michał Nowakowski was direct about it: "I don't think it was ever a thought we even had. It was never a question we asked ourselves." The studio framed the Remastered edition as an improvement to the base game, not a separate product, and as a way to set the stage for the paid expansion Songs of the Past. Nowakowski described the philosophy simply as "the CDPR way, to gift it to the players who already own it."
The commercial layer comes from Songs of the Past itself, which is a paid expansion and the third major story addition to the game after Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. That said, CD Projekt Red also confirmed that both existing expansions will now be bundled with new purchases of the game going forward. The base game's price has been adjusted upward to reflect that.
How Songs of the Past almost never happened
For a long time, CD Projekt Red considered The Witcher 3 finished. Nowakowski put it plainly: "We felt that The Witcher 3 is a closed book and we're never ever coming back to it." What changed was a pair of circumstances the studio is now calling "happy accidents."
The first involved Fool's Theory, a Polish developer staffed largely by former CD Projekt Red employees. They were originally lined up to work on The Witcher 1 remake, announced back in 2022. That project hit delays tied to technology dependencies with The Witcher 4, both of which run on Unreal Engine 5. With Fool's Theory's schedule opening up, the collaboration shifted toward something else.
The second accident was a long-dormant idea. A third Witcher 3 expansion had apparently been conceived years ago but never moved forward. "We actually had the idea for the third expansion a long time ago, but it was in the drawer," Nowakowski said.
Those two threads converging is what made Songs of the Past possible. The remaster grew organically out of the same process. What started as small fixes during Songs of the Past development, "let's fix this, let's fix that," gradually scaled into something much bigger. "We suddenly realised we actually have a remaster on our hands," Nowakowski said.
What the remaster actually changes
This is not a texture pack. The Remastered edition addresses combat, which has been a sore point for players since the original 2015 launch, alongside enemy AI behaviour, horse riding mechanics, and the skill tree system. The visual overhaul is part of the package, but the gameplay changes are what make this a more meaningful update than a simple resolution bump.
The framing from Nowakowski at Gamescom was "let's give Geralt one more ride," and the scope of changes reflects that ambition. For players who bounced off the original combat or haven't revisited the game in years, the Remastered edition is a genuine reason to go back.
What this means heading into 2027
For Witcher fans, the roadmap is now clearer than it's been in years. The free Remastered upgrade drops at the end of September. Songs of the Past gives Geralt a proper send-off before The Witcher 4 shifts focus to a new protagonist. The Witcher 1 remake is still in development, just on a longer timeline.
If you want to get ahead before Songs of the Past arrives, the Songs of the Past release date guide covers everything confirmed so far about the expansion. For broader preparation, the full Witcher 3 guide collection has you covered on builds, quests, and everything in between.
