Confirmation of the upcoming release of a new expansion for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was pretty much universally met with excitement, despite the fact that it was basically the worst-kept secret in gaming. Though we don’t know too much about Songs of the Past just yet, it’s designed to narratively bridge the gap to the Ciri-led next game in the main series.

The DLC doesn’t have a release date just yet, but developer CD Projekt Red has already begun to pave the way for its arrival via various announcements letting players know what to expect. There are quite a lot of caveats that players should be aware of, and one is coming into effect a lot sooner than the rest.

Over on the official CD Projekt Red website, the company confirmed that they are ending support for Windows 10 players for The Witcher 3. The move comes as a result of Microsoft’s decision to do the same, with the developer saying that “without ongoing security updates, official platform support, and continued GPU driver support, we will no longer test our games on Windows 10.”

According to estimates, there are close to a billion machines that never upgraded beyond Windows 10, with many of those likely because of more stringent hardware restrictions. That leaves all of them out in the cold unless they are able to commit to the latest version of the operating system. The same is now also true of Cyberpunk 2077, though running that game likely means your computer is capable of supporting Windows 11.

That’s not the only technical news to be aware of around The Witcher 3 moving forward, though, as the system requirements are also set to change. The full list of new requirements is as follows:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600, Intel Core i5-8400
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660, AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB
• VRAM: 6 GB
• RAM: 12 GB
• Storage: 70 GB SSD
• OS: 64-bit Windows 11

That is set to go live with the next update, where HDDs will also no longer be supported and the game will run exclusively on Direct X 12.

We also don’t have a release date for the new expansion just yet, though it will be at some point next year. Whether that also means that The Witcher 3 will be the last we see of Geralt of Rivia remains to be seen, but let’s hope he gets the send off he deserves if it is.

Systems

Released

May 19, 2015

ESRB

M for Mature: Use of Alcohol, Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content

Engine

REDengine 3

Cross-Platform Play

yes

Cross Save

yes

Expansions

The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone, The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine

Franchise

The Witcher