Songs of the Past: How Ciri Becomes a Witcher Is the Real Question

CD Projekt did the thing almost nobody fully believed they'd do: they announced a brand new expansion for a game that turns eleven this year. Songs of the Past is coming to The Witcher 3, and after years of leaks, denials, and hopeful fan math, it's real. I've been chewing on this since the reveal, and here's where I've landed. The trailers, the artwork, the studio behind it, all of that is fun to pick apart. But there's one question sitting underneath everything, and it isn't who rules the North or which sword shows up in the key art. It's Ciri. Specifically, how on earth does this expansion turn her into a Witcher without shredding the rules the trilogy spent three games teaching us to respect? That's the knot I can't untie, and I don't think a cool monster or a nostalgic festival will be enough to hide it. So before I get lost in sword theories, let's start with what's actually confirmed, then work toward the part that keeps me up.

What we actually know

Songs of the Past is being built by Fool's Theory, a studio stacked with former CD Projekt Red developers and the same team already handling the Witcher 1 remake. It's one more plate spinning on an already loaded Witcher slate, alongside The Witcher 4 and an unannounced co-op RPG reportedly in the works. Around 190 people are said to be on it, roughly the headcount that made the original Witcher 3. That's not a skeleton crew bolting on a side quest. This is a full expansion in the Blood and Wine sense, not a horse-armor DLC, with new quests and very likely a whole new zone. The download reportedly sits somewhere around 15 to 20 GB. For reference, Blood and Wine landed between 7 and 15 GB, so on size alone this is shaping up to be the bigger of the two.

The catch is that it's dragging the whole game's requirements up with it. The new minimum spec asks for a Ryzen 5 2600 or Core i5-8400, a GTX 1660 or RX 5500 XT, 6 GB of VRAM, 12 GB of RAM, and 70 GB of SSD space. It also wants Windows 11 and DirectX 12. If you're still on Windows 10, consider that your cue to start planning an upgrade. None of this is brutal by 2026 standards, but the jump tells me they aren't just stapling on a map. They're re-touching the engine, probably pushing fidelity and ray tracing the way the next-gen update did.

The endings problem

The expansion is walking a tightrope. The Witcher 3 famously ends in a spread of player choices, and Songs of the Past has to funnel some of them into canon to set up The Witcher 4. Who holds the Northern Realms? What became of Nilfgaard? And the big one: which of Ciri's three endings is the real one? CD Projekt has pulled this move before. Every Witcher game quietly overrides a few decisions from the last, because that's the only honest way to keep a saga moving forward. It stings a little every time, but I'd rather they commit to a clear canon than fudge it and leave the whole thing wobbling.

The good news is those Ciri endings are more flexible than people assume. The one where she seemingly dies never actually shows a body, and there's that leaked letter to Eskel about her planning to visit Kaer Morhen. The Empress ending? She could just walk away and leave the throne to Morvran. They've left themselves room, in other words, and Songs of the Past is exactly where they get to spend it.

The thing I can't get past: the Trial of the Grasses

The Witcher 4 shows Ciri as a full Witcher, which means somewhere between now and then she survives the Trial of the Grasses. And the trilogy was painfully clear that the Trial is not a spa day. Most boys who take the mutagens die screaming, and the survival rate is grim enough that the schools stopped running it. The Witcher is the kind of RPG I take way too seriously, which is exactly why the Trial of the Grasses can't be a shrug. I flat out refuse to believe there's a version of Geralt who signs off on Ciri walking into that, power gains or not.

So how does it happen? I keep circling two possibilities that would actually earn the moment instead of skipping it.

1. Grief and revenge. Geralt and Yennefer die, and a hollowed-out Ciri takes the Trial almost daring it to kill her. If she lives, she comes out the other side with the power to hunt whoever's responsible. Written well, that is powerful material. It's also heavy as lead, and I don't buy that CD Projekt has the nerve to kill Geralt off in a Witcher 3 add-on.
2. Kidnapped and mutated. Some obsessed villain trying to rebuild the Witcher schools takes Ciri and forces the mutation on her against her will, and the expansion becomes the rescue. Cleaner, less bleak, and it keeps Geralt firmly in the 'never would have allowed this' camp where he belongs. This is the one I'd put money on.

What I don't want, and what would actually wreck it for me, is Ciri becoming a Witcher just because the plot needs her to be one. A 'just because' answer wouldn't just disappoint me, it'd be the biggest letdown since Cyberpunk, and that one came from this exact studio. They know the difference. They just have to prove they still care about it.

Swords, a strange monster, and where we're headed

Onto the fun speculation, and I do mean speculation. The Belleteyn artwork shows a sword, a monster's hand, and Dandelion. The sword resembles one called Meltith from the base game, with an elven-flavored guard, and it's been confirmed to matter to the story rather than sit there as set dressing. The monster is the piece that really grabs me. I don't think it's a Trent or some stock forest beast. My read is a unique creature that toys with memory or the mind, dragging Geralt through, well, songs of the past. That framing lines up with the title a little too neatly to be an accident.

Location is anyone's guess right now. Popular bets include Dol Blathanna and Cidaris, both leaning on those elven-ruin ties. My favorite is Brokilon. It's the largest ancient forest we know, it's tangled up in Ciri's history, and it sits right beside Cidaris. An ancient, mind-warping monster in an ancient forest steeped in Ciri's past is the kind of thematic rhyme this series adores. Belleteyn itself carries weight too, since in Sapkowski's stories the festival is tied to Geralt and Yennefer's bond, and to Ciri and Yennefer being born around that time of year.

Which drags me straight into the ship war, because that artwork all but invites it. Yen's ending is the canon one, fine. I'm Team Triss. I mean... it was never close. Redheads. If Songs of the Past quietly nudges Geralt back toward Yennefer no matter what you chose, a few of us are going to grumble loudly. Beyond the romance, the release is confirmed for 2027, most likely May to line up with Belleteyn and the series' fondness for May launches, and yes, new Gwent cards are on the way. I will absolutely lose an evening to Gwent again. We all know it.

Songs of the Past has everything it needs to be a proper send-off: a serious team, a real budget, and a story worth telling. But all of it hinges on that one call. Handle Ciri's mutation with the weight the trilogy gave it, and this could be the best thing CD Projekt has shipped in years. Treat it as a checkbox on the road to The Witcher 4, and no sword, no monster, and no stack of Gwent cards will save it. They don't get to fumble Ciri twice.