Songs of the Past will conclude The Witcher 3's story, not pave the way to The Witcher 4

CD Projekt Red says the third and final expansion for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, called Songs of the Past, will "complete" the game story by finally giving Dandelion the spotlight he deserves. Developers clarified that the expansion won't serve as a bridge to The Witcher 4, despite regular speculation, but will instead close a chapter the team felt was missing from the original game.

We always wanted to give Dandelion the proper spotlight he deserved. So we knew that there was no space in the base game to give him justice. That's what I wanted to say: Give justice to Dandelion.

Jakub Rokosz, Fool's Theory CEO and Songs of the Past game director

Songs of the Past will put Dandelion at the center of Geralt's final journey in The Witcher 3. Players will explore Letten, the bard's homeland, and get pulled into another supernatural mystery.

We knew that at some point we wanted to address this thing, because Dandelion is a very important character in Geralt's life. There's a misconception of him being this comedic relief, and this is his only role in the Witcher series, whereas that's not true.

He's a very deep and intelligent character. He used to be a professor at Oxenfurt Academy, and he writes beautiful poetry, so we want to show the players what's behind that mask of a joker, where he came from, what his family is about, what's the world like where he grew up.

Senior quest designer Despoina Anetaki added that it doesn't matter how many years have passed since the original game release – what matters is telling the story completely.

What's really important to us is not so much like should we release an expansion 11 years later; it could be, I don't know, 20, 100 years later. What matters is that the story we tell is complete. This is part of The Wild Hunt, and it felt like a chapter was missing, like something was not there. One more thing we wanted to tell, right?

And Dandelion's story was one of those.

The developers noted that the team went back to Sapkowski's original novels and used the source material to create something that could "excite fans" and "excite us most of all, because it was a difficult question when this idea was first pitched to the team."

Anetaki explained that the team needed to find a reason for Geralt to come out of retirement, one substantial enough to warrant a full expansion. That reason turned out to be Geralt's best friend – Dandelion.

Once we identified that important thing, it all clicked together, and it became very clear that yes, we need to make this expansion because it makes us as fans of The Witcher really excited about it, and I hope that the players will also feel that.

An exact release date for Songs of the Past hasn't been announced yet, but launch is planned for 2027.