CD Projekt Red announced Songs of the Past, a new Witcher 3 Songs of the Past expansion co-developed with Fools Theory, targeting PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S in 2027. If your reaction was “great, another 40 hours I will never finish”, you are the exact person this article is for.
The question is not whether Songs of the Past looks good. It probably will. The question is whether you, specifically, should bother.
Who Fools Theory Is and Why It Matters
Fools Theory is the studio behind the recent Witcher 1 remake, a Polish developer staffed largely by ex-CD Projekt Red veterans. This is not a cash-grab expansion handed to a random contractor. The people making Songs of the Past have actual Witcher DNA.
That matters for quality confidence. It does not solve your backlog problem.
The Backlog Tax Calculation
Witcher 3 base game: 50-100 hours depending on how much side content you do. Hearts of Stone: 10-15 hours. Blood and Wine: 20-30 hours. Songs of the Past: unknown, but expansions of this type typically run 15-30 hours.
If you never finished the base game, you are looking at potentially 150+ hours before you see the new content. At 7 hours of gaming per week (which is optimistic for a 35-year-old with a job and a household), that is five months of playing nothing else.
That is the backlog tax. The expansion exists. You have to pay your way to it.
Three Types of Witcher 3 Owners
You finished the base game and both expansions. Songs of the Past is straightforwardly good news. You know the world, you know the systems, you have positive associations with the investment. A 2027 expansion to a game you loved is a clean buy. Wishlist it now.
You own the game, started it, never finished it. This is where the honest calculation lives. You stopped for a reason. Maybe the game was too long. Maybe life intervened. Maybe you hit a point where it stopped being fun. A new expansion announced for 2027 does not change whatever stopped you the first time.
The move here: look up where you left off. If you were in the early-to-mid game and stopped due to time rather than interest, consider whether a fresh start in 2026 gives you a year to work through it before the expansion drops. If you bounced off the game twice already, this expansion is a skip.
You have never played Witcher 3. Do not start with the goal of reaching a 2027 expansion. Start because you want to play Witcher 3. It is one of the best RPGs ever made. It goes on sale for under $10 regularly. Play it on its own terms. If you finish it and want more, the expansion will be there.
What We Know About Songs of the Past
CD Projekt Red has confirmed it is a full expansion, not DLC. It will be set in the Witcher world with Geralt. Beyond that, details are thin. The 2027 window gives them time before they need to show content.
Fools Theory co-developing suggests this is a serious production, not a maintenance release. The studio does not take on projects they cannot handle; the Witcher 1 remake is proof they can operate at this level.
The Skip-It Case
If you are 35-45, have limited gaming hours, and have already demonstrated twice that you will not finish Witcher 3, skip it. Not forever. Just skip the restart-to-reach-the-expansion logic.
A better plan: wait until 2027 when Songs of the Past launches. By then there will be guides for how to reach the expansion content efficiently. There will be NG+ options. There will be community consensus on the shortest viable path through the base game for someone who just wants to experience the new content. Play it then, with the benefit of two years of community knowledge, instead of grinding through 80 hours in 2026 based on a hunch.
Talk Witcher 3 restart strategy and backlog prioritization on the TAG Discord.
The Witcher’s Future
Songs of the Past is real, it is being made by people who know the franchise, and it lands in 2027. If you finished the game before, great news. If you never did, do not let an expansion announcement guilt you into a restart you will abandon in month two. Play the base game because it is worth playing, not because you want to reach content that does not exist yet.
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