Summary
Ever since The Witcher 3’s decade-on expansion Songs of the Past was revealed not to be a windup nor a case of empthy rumourmongering, I’ve been eating up as many details about its story as CD Projekt Red have offered. The truth is that, outside of showing off the setting and a few of the characters Gerry’ll chat to, they’ve kept their lips pretty tight. On one hand, I get wanting to keep narrative surprises intact, but on the other, it’d be nice to see the studio be less vague about this extra chapter of a story folks assumed they’d already seen through to a satisfying end a decade ago. So, in addition to scouring other interviews about the DLC, I flung my own questions at CD Projekt Red story director Marcin Blacha, who worked in that role and as a lead writer on TW3 back in the day. Watch on YouTube My hope was to draw out some more details about what the DLC’s tale, of Geralt being dragged out of retirement to help old buddy Dandelion, has to offer in terms of being the White Wolf’s last hurrah - it having replaced the excellent Blood and Wine expansion in that concluding role. I wasn’t hoping for an outline of every twist awaiting, just a sprinkling of some hints more specific than a loose desire to see Gerry and the bard ride together for a few more hours, or an idea of what makes Story of the Past’s chosen path the one that fits this moment in the game’s lifespan. Blacha was most forthcoming about the DLC’s setting. “Letten is the homeland of Geralt’s dear friend Dandelion, and it is because of him Geralt decides to head out onto the Path once again,” he told me. “The setting is unfamiliar to Geralt, and to players, and while Dandelion grew up here, he hasn’t been back for a long time. It is only after he receives some urgent family business that he decides to return, but he needs Geralt’s support as a friend. I’d say this new setting helps do one very important thing for us: lets us tell new stories. We rarely see Dandelion like we will in Songs of the Past, forced to face up to responsibility, and in turn, we get to see how that impacts Geralt as a character as well. With a new region, there are new stories, and a lot of potential for players to discover a new side of a game they know so well. For us, Letten felt like a really natural way to go.” That lays out why Letten fits the expansion’s chosen tale and makes clear that CD Projekt Red were keen to lean into a new corner of the Continent. The other strand to my question was whether, since Letten’s an entirely new Witcher setting, any places Geralt has an established connection to were also considered. Blacha didn’t explicitly rule it out, but the suggestion seems to be that the studio potentially only had eyes for unfamiliar lands. The dev was a lot less forthcoming about the nature of the “long-dormant evil” Geralt will be battling during his trip to Letten. Again, I was curious to know whether it bears any similarities to beasts or forces the witcher has faced previously or has any unique connections to him which pre-date Songs of the Past’s story. Blacha would only let slip that this foe is “certainly a new challenge for Geralt” and “a core part of the mystery of the region”. We know there’s a curse involved, and there look to be some people spliced with trees to fight, but beyond that, it looks like nothing more may be revealed until the DLC’s out. Wanting to see whether CD Projekt Red were as mysterious in describing previous Witcher 3 DLC to prospective players, I had a look back at Blood and Wine’s Steam synopsis. “Become professional monster slayer Geralt of Rivia and explore Toussaint, a remote land untouched by war, where you will unravel the horrifying secret behind a beast terrorizing the kingdom,” it reads. “With all trails leading to dead ends, only a witcher can solve the mystery and survive the evil lurking in the night.” That’s not too much more specific than the studio have been with Songs of the Past, but the allusion to the malign force being nocturnal is at least somewhat of a hint towards vampires. There’s also talk of visiting “a world of fairytales gone wrong”, taking on knights in a tourney, and even battling that spoon-collecting wight. The Hearts of Stone DLC’s Steam synopsis, meanwhile, certainly doesn’t lack for details. “Hired by the Merchant of Mirrors, Geralt is tasked with overcoming Olgierd von Everec — a ruthless bandit captain enchanted with the power of immortality,” it blabs. Then it gives away that the mirror merchant’s a soul-stealer who helped Gerry find Yennefer and that the adventure includes “recruiting a crew of break-in artists, spending a night partying with a ghost and outsmarting the most bizarre creatures Geralt has ever faced”. What I’m getting at here is that it is possible to give away plenty of details about what a Witcher 3 DLC is about or includes, without letting the cat anywhere near totally out of the bag. Returning to Blacha, he wouldn’t be drawn on whether Songs of the Past has any more homages/links to the first Witcher game than the chain weapon that’s been front and centre thus far. He wouldn’t say anything about any returning characters outside of Dandelion, but did say he was “looking forward to seeing players’ reactions to the new characters”. Finally, I asked him whether there was anything Blood and Wine didn’t or couldn’t offer, as an ending to Geralt’s tale in the games, that the team are hoping to deliver with this new final chapter. Blacha politely declined to answer. I understand that talk of Songs of the Past’s endings would be premature, but I had hoped CDPR might take the chance to reflect a bit on Blood and Wine all these years later, and the role it’ll play in Gerry’s tale once Songs of the Past arrives. As far as I’m aware, then, all Blacha or other Witcher devs have said about what Blood and Wine no longer being Gerry’s last hurrah is the former telling The Guardian that it “was certainly something [the studio] thought through”. He added that they viewed Dandelion’s request for help as a suitable hook to pluck the witcher from peaceful vineyard life, but didn’t expand any further. I’m still looking at Songs of the Past a bit like a cat might look at a wrapped present that’s been wordlessly placed before it. Despite my inbuilt cynicism, I want to trust that CD Projekt Red aren’t just tacking more miles onto Geralt’s tread for the sake of it. This is different to their near-endless onslaught of post-release additions for Cyberpunk 2077, though. It’s not just an auto-driving mechanic that I can opt to ignore if it gets a bit too janky. It’s about the end to one of my favourite stories in games still doing that tale and the hours spent building it up - layer by layer and line by line - justice. For all I don’t want that new conclusion spoiled, I still think CD Projekt Red could be doing more to help their already thoroughly invested audience understand why those twin swords should come back out of their sheaths all these years on. Read this next
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