So the rumours were true: CD Projekt Red did originally plan to release Witcher 3 expansion Songs of the Past this year, but it changed its plan to 2027 to achieve “the best possible result”.

“We had a moment where our plans for Songs of the Past would be released this year,” CD Projekt Red joint CEO Michał Nowakowski revealed in a financial earnings call this afternoon, “however we decided, together with the development team, that the game will be launching in 2027 to achieve the best possible result from the consumer standpoint, which in the end, frankly speaking, is the only thing that really matters.”

Chief financial officer Piotr Nielubowicz added: “For several quarters, we’ve been disclosing that our pipeline includes some unannounced projects being in an advanced production stage. One of those is the expansion being co-developed by Fool’s Theory. Our early plans assumed that Songs of the Past could be released this year, however, we decided that it will be launching in 2027.”

The earnings call Q&A was unsurprisingly dominated by questions about The Witcher 3 expansion Songs of the Past. One person asked about the scope of the expansion in relation to existing Witcher expansions Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. “When it comes to the scope,” Nowakowski replied, “I’d say it’s actually a bit closer to Blood and Wine, but this is super-subjective. It really depends on how you’re going to play – what’s your playthrough. But we’re definitely making a proper big expansion is the message I would send out there.”

The same person asked him about the expansion price, which Nowakowski said the company wasn’t commenting on. “We are going to reveal that when the right [time] comes,” he said. Similarly, Nowakowski wouldn’t be budged on release dates, or how the expansion’s 2027 release will affect The Witcher 4, if at all. The Witcher 4 doesn’t currently have a release date.

However, it was in relation to The Witcher 4 that Nowakowski did refer to Songs of the Past as a “prologue” of sorts. “First and foremost, we really wanted to deliver a great experience to the fans – a really cool expansion that’s going to make people happy that they can come back to The Witcher 3 setting,” Nowakoski said. “But of course indirectly, yes, it is a reminder [about the franchise]. It is, in a way, a prologue, although it’s not a prologue in a verbatim way in [that] it’s a prologue for the actual Witcher 4.”

Perhaps he just means that it’s a way of restarting The Witcher 3 conversation, then. “Yes, you can look at it in a way [that] it’s a way to maintain certain chatter on The Witcher 3, but all of those are additional side effects. The core thing from our perspective is really delivering a high quality fun experience to the existing fans of The Witcher.”

Regarding Songs of the Past being shown at Gamescom, which is something CD Projekt Red has announced, Nowakowski said not to expect a hands-on demo but more of a guided presentation of the game. “I cannot really talk through the details but what I would suggest is that historically when we were showing Witcher games, we were typically doing a guided demo kind of experience,” he said, “so probably you should be thinking more along those lines rather than a hands-on experience.

“These are big games, very large RPG experiences, and having a five-minute session with a game like that would not really give you a lot. So we’re more likely going to be following the trail of what we’ve been doing in the past with The Witcher 3 or, for that matter, with Cyberpunk when we were announcing it as well.”

A couple of other tidbits arose during the call. Again on the topic of The Witcher 4, one person asked whether CD Projekt Red would release expansions for it, which initially seems like a bizarrely far-away thing to ask about. But the intention becomes clearer when you consider CD Projekt Red’s incredibly ambitious plans to release three new Witcher games in six years – a timeframe that will be started by The Witcher 4, whenever it’s released.

“The plans are pretty ambitious,” Nowakowski said during the call. “Specifically, it’s to release three Witcher games within a six-year period. It would be difficult, to be very honest, for us to add an expansion to the upcoming trilogy – this is where we are here and now with this particular issue.” So no expansions for The Witcher 4? That’s a different approach to how CD Projekt Red has operated in the past, though more Witcher games soon after should soften the blow.

Piotr Nielubowicz also made reference to other unannounced gaming projects CD Projekt Red had in development. “We obviously have some other content at an advanced production phase as well,” he said, “and while it’s obviously not on the same scale as the major expansion, we still plan to release it this year.”

CD Projekt Red formally announced The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past yesterday, revealing that it will star Geralt rather than Ciri, and that we’ll learn more at the end of the summer. There’s also been a lot of attention on the sword that Geralt’s seen unsheathing in the Songs of the Past artwork. The company also revealed it would raise the minimum PC requirements for the 11-year old Witcher 3 game in preparation for Songs of the Past.