Impressions from The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past Presentation at Gamescom 2026!

Songs from the past sound better now

An invitation to the expansion presentation was provided to us by CD PROJEKT RED, thank you very much!

This year's Gamescom is packed with major titles, but the biggest one might actually be a game that came out in 2015 — The Witcher 3. If you're reading this article, you probably already know about the Songs of the Past expansion that was announced for the game, as well as the remaster version revealed at the ONL stage. Following all these exciting announcements, we were invited to see about half an hour of gameplay from the new expansion, along with a taste of the remaster arriving in less than a month.

The presentation we saw featured live gameplay from the beginning of the expansion, where we see Geralt waking up after a long night of celebrations in the province of Letten. At first glance, Geralt looks different from the Geralt we were used to seeing — he has no sword or armor, but Roach, his faithful (and buggy) horse, is still around. It seems retirement treats Geralt well. Nevertheless, Geralt remains Geralt with those iconic grunts and manner of speaking that we get a taste of as we begin searching for our old friend Dandelion. I won't go too much into the plot details, but I'll just say we embark on a quest to find Dandelion who has disappeared, a mystery that draws us into his family's relationships and intrigues and takes us to the Garden of Thorns — which is already a witcher's job, and then we see Geralt in his full glory with shining armor and swords, including the new weapon he received as part of the expansion.

At this point we also got a brief look at the game's new skill tree, which appears much more accessible and modern compared to the original — one of the improvements coming with the remaster. In the Garden of Thorns, Geralt fights several new enemies we haven't seen before, and we also got a demonstration of the Targeting system, which has received significant improvements and is much smoother and more natural. Just before the end of the presentation, we saw a demonstration of the new weapon — a heavy and deadly iron chain that Geralt can use to pull distant enemies toward him, make enemies lower their shields, or simply whip them with the chain and take their heads off. On the graphical side of the presentation, you could see the game looks much better, especially in the lighting department and some of the environments that are much more packed with details and elements compared to the base game, as well as the reworked NPC system where people in the world can swim or drive carts — all of which together give the world a much more alive feeling.

Currently, we don't have a release date for Songs of the Past, but it's likely to arrive early next year. We'll of course update you with any information that comes out.