What does The Witcher 3 expansion mean for the release of The Witcher 4?

It's unprecedented for a game to receive new content 12 years after its release, but if there was ever a studio to make it possible, it would be CD Projekt RED. The Witcher 3 is receiving a new expansion titled Songs of the Past. While very little is known about what surprises lie in store, CD Projekt RED's social media manager, Marcin Łukaszewski, has stated that this will be a major piece of content with "lots of hours of gameplay, including new story, characters, etc."

Songs of the Past will come our way in 2027, and while a specific release date hasn't been announced yet, we'll learn more about it in late summer. However, the scope of the upcoming expansion, coupled with its release year, could mean bad news for everyone hoping to play The Witcher 4 next year.

The Witcher 4 is likely to be released in 2028, given that The Witcher 3's Songs of the Past is coming in 2027

Back in December 2025, CD Projekt RED announced that its highly anticipated title, The Witcher 4, wouldn't be hitting shelves in 2026. As such, video game players hoped that 2027 would be the year they would finally take control of Ciri in a brand-new adventure. Unfortunately, the arrival of Songs of the Past next year makes that scenario seem all the more unlikely.

Modern development cycles for AAA video games can take anywhere between five and seven years (or, in the case of Beyond Good and Evil 2, over 18 years). Studios are aware this is a very lengthy period, so they usually look for creative ways to bridge the gap between releases.

Warner Bros. Games knew Rocksteady Studios would take a long time to develop Batman: Arkham Knight after its work on Arkham City. So, while the world waited, developer WB Games Montréal was tasked with creating and releasing Batman: Arkham Origins. Thanks to this strategy, we had three different Batman games across four years created by two different studios. Similarly, fans of The Legend of Zelda played the Hyrule Warriors games—which were co-developed by Koei Tecmo—while Nintendo worked on mainline entries in the saga.

A similar strategy seems to be happening with The Witcher saga. After all, Songs of the Past is being co-developed by Fool’s Theory and CD Projekt RED. That allows the latter to still be involved in the creation of the expansion without needing to dedicate all its resources to it. However, it could also be an indication that The Witcher 4 won't be coming next year, and one of the main purposes of Songs of the Past is to make the wait feel shorter.

CD Projekt RED aims to release an entirely new The Witcher trilogy within a span of six years. This is a very ambitious goal that can only be achieved if the studio shares models, animations, and development tools between games. However, this also means that more "preparation" time is needed to polish all of these assets so they can be used in the long run. As such, it is highly unlikely that 2027 will be the year when the studio hits the ground running with its new trilogy.

Of course, this is just speculation, and there's always a chance that CD Projekt RED surprises the world with two major entries in its acclaimed The Witcher saga in the same year. But even if that doesn't end up being the case, we'll definitely play Songs of the Past next year. Better yet, it won't be long before we know what Geralt's upcoming adventure will be like.

The Witcher 3 expansion Songs of the Past will be released in 2027.

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