Gamescom is in full swing, and the show has already been a great one for Witcher fans. On Tuesday at Gamescom Opening Night Live, CD Projekt Red announced that a remastered version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is on the way next month ahead of its upcoming expansion, Songs of the Past. On Wednesday, the studio streamed snippets of the DLC all day, totaling over 15 minutes of gameplay.
The Songs of the Past expansion once again stars Geralt of Rivia as he investigates a dark secret in the countryside community of Letten, where Dandelion seems to once again be in trouble. The footage begins as Geralt sets out to find a buddy whom he lost track of during a party. Once he mounts his horse, we see colorful countryside and beautiful villas, a significant departure from the base game’s often dreary swamps and marshlands. However, when the sun sets, it becomes clear that there are two sides of Letten: Its bright outward appearance seems to hide some greater darkness.
And then Geralt fights some monsters. While it’s hard to get much out of this sequence without hands-on time, we do get a peek at Geralt using his chain, which is a new weapon added for the DLC. He can use it to break up big groups of enemies by pulling stragglers in for a stab, Scorpion-style. This weapon will apparently function similarly to the crossbow, slowing down time as you line up an attack.
If there’s a big takeaway from this extended footage and the first trailer released yesterday, it’s that Letten seems to be a bucolic vacation town during the day and a gothic hellscape at night. We’ll find out how well CD Projekt Red pulls off that contrast when Songs of the Past releases sometime next year.
The upcoming expansion will benefit from the improvements made for The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt — Remastered. This updated version of the 2015 RPG is coming out on Sept. 29, and will be free for those who already own the game. It comes with a long list of changes, including improved graphical fidelity, updated combat, a reworked skill system, and more.
