‘The Witcher 3’ Returns With “Songs Of The Past”

While The Witcher 4 might not be coming anytime soon, fans of the dark fantasy RPG series have a different project to look forward to. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt‘s new expansion, “Songs of the Past”, was announced months ago, but without any additional information beyond a screenshot. Now, in the aftermath of Gamescom, we’ve got twelve minutes of gameplay footage, giving us a glimpse at Letten, the new area we’ll be exploring in the new story mode.

With Geralt pulled to Letten thanks to Dandelion, we’re introduced to a new world far from the war tearing apart Novigrad. It’s a gorgeous new environment that looks even more impressive thanks to all the additional work done to the base game with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remaster. Of course, it’s not all gorgeous landscapes, as there’s a darker side of Letten: The Garden of Thorns. This dangerous area is closed off to everyone else, but Geralt is forced to investigate in the hopes of discovering what’s happened to his longtime friend. Fortunately, he’s got a new weapon to help him deal with the region’s monsters: a giant chain whip. Given The Witcher IV presented Ciri wielding a similar weapon, adding it here is likely meant to get players acclimated to Ciri’s playstyle.

The first thing I think while seeing this: we could easily stay at The Witcher 3 level of fidelity for the next generation and I’d be fine with that. This game looks gorgeous. I also think this might finally get western RPGs back to the prominence they had during the PlayStation 3 and early PS4 eras. The genre fell off somewhere after the release of, ironically, The Witcher 3. Sure, it’s an expansion, but with the director talking about it being as long as The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine, we’re likely talking about a 30-40 hour expansion if players do everything.

There’s no release date, but The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Songs of the Past is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC.