“If we’d told people before Blood and Wine that we were bringing Regis back, a lot of the hardcore fans would have said that’s impossible — he vaporised.” Miles Tost, level design lead at CD Projekt Red, is explaining the studio’s philosophy on canon, and it applies directly to Songs of the Past, the third Witcher 3 expansion due in 2027.
Speaking to IGN at the Lucca Comics & Games festival alongside writer Paula Meissner, Tost laid out how the team is building Letten — a brand-new region of the Continent — and why its most important design decision involves a drink.
Letten: A Region Built Around a Drink
Each Witcher 3 region has a distinct feel, Tost says, and not just visually. Skellige leans on boat travel and mountains; No Man’s Land is wide and open. Letten, meanwhile, gets its identity from Bracket — a local alcohol described as a fusion of honey and beer.
“It feels like such a small thing, but for us it’s very important, because it draws a lot on what this region is,” Tost explains. Producing Bracket requires honey and hops, so both appear in the landscape. The drink is a cultural export and the economic backbone of the area — and it even shapes the monsters that live there.
Culturally, Letten mixes British influences in its aristocracy with heavy Polish countryside inspiration in the architecture. CD Projekt Red has called the region an “idyllic land, rich in rural tradition and folklore”, sheltered from the wars ravaging the rest of the Continent.
Why the Swarmion Belongs There
That honey production has consequences. The expansion’s showcase new monster, the Swarmion, is a ghoulish creature that protects itself with a swarm of hornets — and it loves honey. “What kind of monster would live there?” Tost asks. “So the Swarmion makes sense.” The team’s aim is for every creature, quest and landmark to feel like a natural outgrowth of the region’s economy and folklore, rather than a generic bestiary dropped in from elsewhere.
Can You Bring Characters Back From the Dead?
Meissner says an in-house lore team checks everything the writers do. “They know every detail from the books, from every game, from every piece of franchise content,” she notes. Songs of the Past touches on topics the franchise hasn’t revealed yet, which she admits created challenges.
“We don’t really try to retcon things, but we do try to find cool ways to expand and build on the established lore — as long as we can find ways to explain it.” — Miles Tost, CD Projekt Red
Regis is the precedent. The higher vampire returned in Blood and Wine at roughly a tenth of his power, still recovering, saved by another of his kind. The trick, Tost argues, is that resurrection “works as long as you can explain it and make it make sense”.
Dandelion’s Homeland and Its Dark Secret
The story sends Geralt to Letten to help Dandelion with “a family matter” — and the bard’s real identity as Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount of Lettenhove, means players finally visit the grand manor where he grew up. The Gamescom demo showed black mourning banners hanging over the estate, an ominous dream after the local Belleteyn celebrations, and Dandelion missing. Geralt teams up with the bard’s cousin Lilla to search the Garden of Thorns — the one blighted spot in an otherwise perfect land — chasing an old family legend and a dark secret beneath the surface.
The Long Road to 2027
Songs of the Past was announced in May 2026, ten years after Blood and Wine, and fully revealed at Gamescom in August alongside The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered. It was originally planned for 2026 but delayed to 2027 “to achieve the best possible result”, in co-CEO Michał Nowakowski’s words. The expansion is being co-developed with Fool’s Theory, the studio founded by former Witcher 3 quest designer Jakub Rokosz, and arrives as a paid DLC on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2 — with a Blizzard partnership also bringing it to Battle.net.
Geralt receives a new weapon, too: a silver chain wrapped around his arm for handling crowds, deployed in combat like a sign or bomb. It’s a fitting last hurrah — billed as the final new outing for the White Wolf before The Witcher 4 hands the saga to a new generation.
