In the wake of the announcement of The Witcher 3 Songs of the Past, CD Projekt staff have taken to social media to insist it should be considered an expansion, rather than DLC — even using an IGN interview with Cyberpunk star Idris Elba to hammer home the point.
Yesterday, CD Projekt announced the third expansion to its hugely successful fantasy role-playing game The Witcher 3. It’s due out in 2027, 12 years after the 60 million-selling The Witcher 3 came out in 2015, and 11 years after the second expansion, Blood and Wine, came out in 2016. The Witcher 3's first expansion, Hearts of Stone, was released in October 2015.
We don’t have much to go on, save an official description that confirms Songs of the Past will return players to the role of legendary monster slayer Geralt of Rivia for a brand new adventure on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC. That’s left a void for discussion around the size and scope of Songs of the Past, but everything CD Projekt staff have said following the announcement suggests fans can expect something pretty big.
“Let me remind you the definition of the Expansion,” Paweł Sasko, Associate Game Director on Cyberpunk 2 and former developer on Cyberpunk 2077, its expansion Phantom Liberty, and The Witcher 3 itself, tweeted alongside a clip of Idris Elba, who played Solomon Reed in the 2023 expansion. In the clip, which is taken from an IGN interview, Elba stresses that CD Projekt releases DLC for free, but expansions are a different proposition.
“Just to be clear, it’s not DLC. It’s an expansion. You know why? Because we do expansions — Big! Massive! Monster! We don’t do DLCs, and when we do, we give them away.”
If Songs of the Past is an expansion, then, we are safe to assume it will be, as Elba puts it, “big, massive, monster.” But other CD Projekt developers have also chimed in.
“For us at CDPR, DLCs are small pieces of content we release for free — like the additional outfits for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt,” Marcin Łukaszewski, Community and Social Media Manager, tweeted in response to a fan question.
“Expansions, on the other hand, are major pieces of content providing lots of hours of gameplay, including new story, characters, etc.”
So while Songs of the Past is technically DLC because it’s content you download, it should be thought of differently. (One recent report pointed to the possibility of a 'Dune-style' location for the new expansion.) CD Projekt will host an official special anniversary stream for Blood and Wine today, May 28. Perhaps we’ll find out more there.
It’s a hugely busy time for CD Projekt. The Witcher 4 production continues, although CD Projekt has cautioned fans not to expect its launch until 2027 at the earliest. The company plans an ambitious six-year roadmap in which it will also launch The Witcher 5 and The Witcher 6.
While further DLC for The Witcher 3 is now confirmed to be in development, CD Projekt has ruled out more DLC for Cyberpunk, suggesting fans will indeed have to wait for Cyberpunk 2 to return to its much-loved dystopian universe. And the wait looks like it's going to be significant; Cyberpunk 2 is further behind The Witcher 4, and CD Projekt co-CEO Michał Nowakowski has suggested Cyberpunk 2 won’t be out until at least 2030.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
