The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered Is Coming September 29, Free for Existing Owners

What’s actually new in the Remastered version

The remaster goes considerably further than the free next-gen update CD Projekt Red shipped back in 2022. This time the changes touch visuals, combat, movement, and several systems players have been asking to see reworked for years: updated textures, new lighting and foliage shading, revamped mount handling for Roach, enhanced monster behavior, a reworked skill tree, transmogrification (so armor appearance and stats can finally be separated), an expanded photo mode, and new finishers. CD Projekt Red is positioning it as the definitive way to experience the decade-old RPG rather than a simple visual polish pass.

Wild Hunt Remastered launches September 29 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S as a free upgrade for anyone who already owns the base game — no repurchase required. The bigger platform news is that the same date brings The Witcher 3 to two places it has never officially been: a native Nintendo Switch 2 version, with pre-orders already open, and Battle.net, through a new partnership between CD Projekt Red and Blizzard Entertainment.

Both expansions are free, starting today

In a surprise announced on stage by Geoff Keighley, CD Projekt Red is giving every existing Witcher 3 owner free access to both Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine immediately — not waiting for the September 29 remaster launch. Anyone who owns the base game but skipped the expansions gets them at no cost, effective from the announcement itself, giving players a full month and a half to work through both before Remastered arrives.

Songs of the Past: a new region, a decade later

The gamescom teaser also gave the first look at Songs of the Past, a paid story expansion taking Geralt to Letten, a newly introduced region CD Projekt Red describes as rich in rural tradition and folklore, with bountiful harvests and lavish festivals concealing a long-dormant evil beneath the surface. Beyond the setting, the reveal pointed to new combat options for the expansion, including a chain weapon that lets Geralt pull enemies toward him, alongside new monster types built specifically for Letten.

Songs of the Past is scheduled for 2027 and is available to wishlist now on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2. CD Projekt Red is co-developing the expansion with Fool’s Theory, a studio led by Witcher 3 veterans, while the Remastered edition itself is being built with Yigsoft — the same studio behind The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Complete Edition and Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty.

The Blizzard partnership, and what it means for Diablo 4 players

The Battle.net launch comes through a new partnership between CD Projekt Red and Blizzard Entertainment, and it comes with a crossover hook: anyone who buys Remastered or Songs of the Past through Blizzard’s platform unlocks a Geralt-inspired skin in Diablo 4. CD Projekt Red says further details on that partnership will follow when the studio attends BlizzCon in September.

For anyone at gamescom in person, CD Projekt Red is running guided presentations of both Songs of the Past and the Remastered upgrade throughout the show in Hall 8.1. For everyone else, a series of REDstreams presentations covering specific parts of both releases will stream on YouTube and Twitch over the course of the event.

Songs of the Past arrives roughly ten years after Blood and Wine closed out the original game’s story content, making it one of the longest gaps between a base game’s final expansion and a follow-up story addition in the studio’s history — and a clear sign CD Projekt Red sees enough of an audience in The Witcher 3, more than a decade after its original 2015 release, to justify building all-new content for it rather than only a technical remaster.

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