CD Projekt has signalled changes to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt minimum requirements ahead of the release of the just-announced third expansion, Songs of the Past.

In a blog post, the developer said that with new content coming to The Witcher 3, it will need to update its system requirements "to ensure smooth performance and compatibility going forward." These requirements will become effective starting from the next update.

The Witcher 3 new minimum requirements:

• 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

CD Projekt said these minimum requirements reflect “how hardware capabilities and software usage have evolved since we last changed the system requirements.”

In particular:

• Windows 11 will be the minimum required OS for both The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 following Microsoft's end of support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025. Without ongoing security updates, official platform support, and continued GPU driver support, we will no longer test our games on Windows 10.
• HDDs will no longer be supported, as SSDs offer faster load times, smoother asset streaming, and improved overall performance.
• The game will exclusively run using DirectX 12, which allows us to support ongoing technical improvements and modern hardware more effectively.
• Only processors supported on Windows 11 will be supported by us.
• Only graphics cards with ongoing active driver support for gaming on Windows 11 will be supported.

CD Projekt qualified these changes by saying it’s possible to revert to an earlier version of The Witcher 3, if you can’t meet the minimum requirements. It’s worth noting that only the latest version of the game is fully supported, as it contains all the latest improvements, fixes and changes.

There’s no word yet on when the next update will be released, but CD Projekt said this morning that Songs of the Past will launch at some point in 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

The DLC is due out 12 years after the 60 million-selling The Witcher 3 came out in 2015, and 11 years after the second expansion, Blood and Wine, came out in 2016. The Witcher 3's first expansion, Hearts of Stone, was released in October 2015.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.