Songs of the Past were made possible thanks to the development of a remaster of the 11-year-old The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Fool's Theory revealed that the Songs of the Past expansion for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt might never have happened without a massive remaster of the base game. Technical limits of the original engine made it impossible to bring the studio's vision for Letten, the area at the heart of the new story, to life.

The Polish studio ended up merging work on the remaster of the 11-year-old RPG with development of the new expansion content.

In an interview with TechRadar, Jakub Rokosz, game director on the expansion and CEO of Fool's Theory, admitted that pulling off their plans only became possible thanks to a fortunate set of circumstances.

The stars had to align, so to say, because a few things had to happen. Songs of the Past expansion and Letten itself, the area that it takes place, it had a certain vision. We had a certain vision for it, and it posed us certain specific technological challenges that was impossible to realize without the remaster changes.

So the conditions had to grow for the remaster to appear on the horizon for us to be able to realize this, so this is actually two things meshing together to make it a reality.

According to the developer, Letten's lush vegetation, small bushes, and dense forests caused serious headaches during the early stages of development. The team could only solve these problems thanks to the technological upgrades that came with the remaster.

One of the challenges when we started prototyping the area was [that] it was impossible to ride with a horse through it, basically. So we had to do some improvements on the horse handling side, right? So it feels more organic or more natural.

Another distinctive feature of Letten is a huge lake at the center of the map, offering a view all the way to the horizon. Rokosz explained that this kind of open space, where players can watch fishermen out on the water, put heavy strain on the engine, since it required rendering many objects at long distances simultaneously. The remaster helped solve this issue through additional optimization.

Songs of the Past is set to launch in 2027, though an exact date hasn't been announced yet. The Witcher 3 remaster arrives September 29.