The Witcher 3 Gets Remastered Again — But What Are You Actually Paying For?
CD Projekt Red has confirmed Geralt's latest comeback for Xbox, but not the price, other platforms, or what exactly 'Songs of the Past' is.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is coming back round again, this time badged as “Remastered” for Xbox Series X|S, with CD Projekt Red confirming a release date of 29 September via Xbox Wire. The announcement landed at gamescom’s Opening Night Live and came bundled with a teaser for something called Songs of the Past — though the studio’s own write-up cuts off before explaining what that actually is.
What’s actually been confirmed
The concrete facts here are thin but real: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered has a release date of 29 September, it’s heading to Xbox Series X|S, and CD Projekt Red says it brings “a wide range of improvements and modernizations” while keeping the original’s “heart and soul” intact. That’s it. No specifics on what those improvements actually cover — whether that’s visual upgrades, performance targets, ray tracing, load times, or something more substantial — have been detailed in the material published so far.
Songs of the Past gets a namecheck and a glimpse in the reveal trailer, but the source material trails off precisely where it should explain what the thing is. Is it a new questline? A cosmetic pack? A standalone story expansion? Right now, nobody outside CD Projekt Red actually knows, and NerdBite would rather say that plainly than guess.
Hold on — didn’t this already happen?
Long-time players will remember that The Witcher 3 got a substantial “next-gen” overhaul back in 2022, adding ray tracing, photo mode and a raft of technical improvements as a free upgrade for existing owners. Whether this new “Remastered” version is a further iteration of that same update, a fresh full-price release, or simply a rebrand tied to a new content drop isn’t clear from what’s been published. Given the game’s history of re-releases and edition-shuffling, that distinction matters — a free patch and a new full-price product are very different things for anyone deciding whether to care.
So who’s actually affected
Right now: Xbox Series X|S owners, and specifically those without an existing next-gen-upgraded copy of the game. Everyone else — PC players, PlayStation owners, Switch owners, anyone on Xbox One — isn’t mentioned in the announcement at all, so there’s no confirmation this remaster is heading their way, on this date or any other. If you’re hoping for Songs of the Past on a different platform, or wondering whether it’s paid DLC, that information simply hasn’t been made public yet.
What to do about it
If you already own The Witcher 3 on Xbox and enjoyed the 2022 next-gen update, there’s no urgency here — wait for CD Projekt Red to actually confirm pricing, platform scope and what Songs of the Past involves before deciding whether it’s worth your time or money. If you’ve never played it, a remaster arriving in late September is as good a jumping-on point as any, but there’s no reason to pre-order or get swept up in gamescom hype before the studio fills in the blanks it’s left open.
The headline fact is straightforward: Geralt’s coming back to Xbox on 29 September. Everything else — price, platform breadth, and what exactly Songs of the Past adds — is still an open question CD Projekt Red hasn’t answered yet.