The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Gets Free Upgrade Ahead of the Songs of the Past DLC

You’re getting another reason to return to The Witcher 3 this fall, and this time, you won’t have to pay for the upgrade. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered arrives as a free upgrade on September 29, adding a long list of accessibility features, combat improvements, traversal changes, and visual enhancements.

The update also sets the stage for Songs of the Past, the upcoming expansion planned for 2027. One of the biggest parts of the September update is its approach to accessibility. You’ll be able to open the accessibility settings and adjust the experience without losing access to trophies or achievements on PlayStation, XBOX, or PC.

You can make The Witcher 3 work more comfortably for you without having to worry about disabling progression rewards.

The available options include health regeneration, automatic looting, infinite item durability, unlimited bow durability, infinite breath, and a vitality regeneration boost. You can also ignore item weight and automatically loot corpses. These are not buried behind special unlocks either. You can turn them on directly through the accessibility menu whenever you want.

For you, that could mean anything from making a first playthrough more manageable to creating a faster second run. You might want to experience the world, story, soundtrack, and dialogue without spending as much time fighting the game's systems. You might also simply prefer having more control over how much challenge you want. The important point is that the options are there without forcing them on anyone.

That wider approach to accessibility has become increasingly common in games, and the remastered edition continues that trend. Some players prefer a completely untouched difficulty experience, while others appreciate guidance, easier combat, or quality-of-life settings. The new options give you room to decide how you want to play instead of making one approach mandatory.

The Witcher 3 also benefits because these changes target the little frustrations that can build up over a long role-playing game. Instead of treating every convenience feature as a shortcut, the update lets you decide which systems matter to you. The Witcher 3 can remain challenging for players who want that, while still being approachable for those who value comfort and flexibility.

That same philosophy shows up in movement, progression, and combat.

Small adjustments here can make a lengthy adventure feel smoother, without changing its core identity. For anyone returning after years away, The Witcher 3 should feel familiar while still offering enough new features to make another playthrough worthwhile.

The free upgrade goes beyond accessibility, too. You’ll see new meditation animations, while gathering herbs from horseback becomes possible. Roach can also be mounted dynamically from farther away and from different angles, with additional mounting animations included. Horse riding is being improved overall, including easier movement through dense forests.

Combat and progression are receiving attention as well. The update adds new and modified skills, improved targeting, and better input during combat and horse riding. Skills can be unlocked more quickly, while progression is now tied to the number of points you spend rather than simply depending on your character level.

You’re also getting three new finishers and improved traversal. That includes being able to jump onto ladders and slide down them, adding some extra flexibility to movement. On PC, the visual side of the upgrade includes path tracing, multi-frame generation support, DLSS 4.5, and new ray-traced hair. Together, those additions make the free upgrade considerably more than a basic visual refresh.

If you still haven’t bought the game, however, waiting for another bargain may not be the best plan.

The game has been available since 2015, and there are plenty of players who entered gaming later and simply never returned to pick it up. Even though it has been heavily discounted in the past, the remastered branding could keep the price higher for a while.

The expectation is that another major discount may not arrive before September 29. A winter sale could eventually bring the price down again, but a discount around 30 percent may be more realistic than the extreme prices seen previously. The base game has been offered for as little as $3.99 during a 90 percent sale, making those older deals unusually generous.

If you already own The Witcher 3, the situation is much simpler. You get the upgrade, along with the additional content tied to the new edition, without needing to buy another copy. That makes returning to The Witcher 3 particularly appealing if it has been sitting untouched in your backlog.

Following that is Songs of the Past, the chapter that actually pushes the overarching narrative ahead. Nintendo's targeting a 2027 launch, though a firm date hasn't been locked in. Industry chatter points to an early-2027 window as the most likely bet, but that's speculation for now — nothing official yet.

The expansion takes place after Blood and Wine and is positioned as a major transition for the series.

Geralt remains important and could still appear in future stories, but Songs of the Past is being presented as one of his final major adventures for now. The next Witcher trilogy, beginning with Witcher 4, will instead put Ciri at the center.

That makes the expansion feel like a passing of the torch. You’ll still get Geralt, but the story is increasingly preparing you for Ciri to become the main face of the franchise. The developers working on this DLC are also involved with a remake of The Witcher Remake, so Geralt’s presence around the franchise is not disappearing entirely.

The new setting is Letten, the ancestral realm of the de Lettenhove family. You’ll meet members of his family, including his brother, grandmother, and cousin, and you’ll have the opportunity to explore the family estate. That gives the expansion a different corner of the world to build around while keeping familiar characters involved.

Geralt is also getting new romance possibilities. While Yennefer and Triss remain the most recognizable romantic choices from the main game, the expansion introduces another option. You don’t have to pursue it, though, and it fits the role-playing structure that has always allowed you to shape Geralt differently depending on your choices.

Another smaller but welcome addition is the ability to pet dogs.

The more significant gameplay change comes from Geralt’s new combat chain. This weapon gives you another way to control fights, allowing you to target an enemy, pull them toward you, and create openings for new finishers. Some of these attacks can end with Geralt taking an enemy’s head off, giving the chain a very different feel from his usual arsenal.

The expansion is also expected to be substantial. Its scale is being compared with Blood and Wine, which means you can reasonably expect something in the neighborhood of a 20-hour experience, although the final length remains to be seen. Pricing has not been confirmed either, but a roughly $29.99 price point would make sense for an expansion of this size.

What makes the whole plan stand out is that you’re getting meaningful new life from The Witcher 3, which originally launched in 2015. Development cycles have become increasingly long, so returning to established games with substantial expansions can give players more time with worlds they already care about while new projects are still being developed.

It also shows why this approach should not automatically become the expectation for every publisher. The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 have been major successes, giving their developer the resources and motivation to support these projects. The studio also had to rebuild trust following Cyberpunk 2077’s troubled launch, although the subsequent updates and improvements have helped restore much of that confidence.

CD Projekt Red's generosity here reflects its own success, not an industry standard.

So, while you can appreciate the free remastered upgrade and the ambitious expansion, it would be unrealistic to assume every major publisher will start giving away similar upgrades. Producing a remaster costs money, and not every company is going to make the same choice.

For now, the timeline is straightforward. You can look toward September 29 for the free remastered update, then toward 2027 for Songs of the Past. After that, the road leads toward Witcher 4 and the new trilogy centered on Ciri. The result is a sizeable new chapter for a game that has already had a remarkably long life, with Geralt getting another story before the series fully moves into its next era.