Way back in the year 2015, my friend and former colleague Kyle Hill started playing a little game called The Witcher III: Wild Hunt. I’d never heard of The Witcher, nor at the time did I even have any of the systems required to play this game. Kyle could not have loved this game more. It felt like he was playing it for years. And in truth, the game is enormous. Even just the base game takes well over 150 hours if you want to do everything. Add to that, two expansions that take anywhere from 10-30 hours apiece and that’s a good chunk of your life. Well, people in Kyle’s camp will be jumping for joy because out of nowhere, we’re getting another, brand new expansion to The Witcher III next year.
This kind of thing is a bit unprecedented. Sure, games like Hitman will have updates and new content even years after the launch window, but for a game like this, which dropped all of its content a decade ago, to suddenly offer a new expansion, it’s like Christmas.
From the official Witcher Twitter account:
Medallion’s humming… that can only mean one thing! It’s time to announce The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Songs of the Past!
This brand new expansion for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will take you to the Path with Geralt of Rivia once more. It’s being co-developed with @Fools_Theory and is coming to PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 in 2027. Stay tuned for more information in late summer.
Complete with some sexy new artwork, the tweet offered fans just a taste of what they can expect next year. Geralt of Rivia will walk the Path and take on some tree hag or something. We obviously won’t know how long this expansion will be. It has to use the original game’s engine and UI, but since Witcher III got a current-gen gussy-up in 2022, it’ll fit right in.
Fans have been hoping for a fourth full game for quite awhile. The Witcher IV is said to be in development. In the time since The Witcher III dropped, an entire multi-season TV series based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels has started and ended (likely). But excitement and enthusiasm for the property hasn’t waned. Hopefully, for Kyle Hill’s sake, the fourth installment doesn’t take another 10 years.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.
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