The Witcher 3 reveals new system requirements and it’s now Windows 11 or nothing

CD Projekt finally confirmed today that it’s working on a new expansion for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, called Songs of the Past, that’s expected to be out sometime in 2027. As part of that announcement, the studio also said it’s updating the game’s system requirements “to ensure smooth performance and compatibility going forward.”

It initially struck me as a bit odd that CD Projekt would need to update hardware requirements for a game that’s more than 10 years old—after all, PCs now are more powerful than PCs then, right? So you’d think that if anything, The Witcher 3 would run better than ever these days.

It comes down to the “compatibility” part of the statement: An awful lot has happened in the past decade, including the release, and end, of Windows 10. And that’s the issue: The Witcher 3 supported Windows 7 and 8 at launch, and support for those came to a halt in 2023; Windows 10 got the ka-chunk, with some exceptions, in 2025.

As a result, when the next Witcher 3 update goes live, this will be the new minimum system spec:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600, Intel Core i5-8400GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660, AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GBVRAM: 6 GBRAM: 12 GBStorage: 70 GB SSDOS: 64-bit Windows 11

CD Projekt said the updated requirements “reflect how hardware capabilities and software usage have evolved,” and noted in particular that Windows 11 is now the minimum required OS following the end of support for earlier versions of the OS: “Without ongoing security updates, official platform support, and continued GPU driver support, we will no longer test our games on Windows 10.” And as a result of that, only CPUs and GPUs with official ongoing Windows 11 support will be supported by CD Projekt.

DirectX 11 support is being dropped because going with DX12 exclusively “allows us to support ongoing technical improvements and modern hardware more effectively.” And last but not least, HDDs will no longer be supported because SSDs are just so damn much better. (I just hope you already have one.)

Just for fun, here’s the original minimum spec, as still (for now) listed on Steam, slightly re-arranged for a better line-by-line matchup:

CPU: Intel CPU Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz / AMD A10-5800K APU (3.8GHz)GPU: Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 660 / AMD GPU Radeon HD 7870VRAM: Whatever, manRAM: 6 GB RAMStorage: 50 GB available spaceOS: 64-bit Windows 7, 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1)

Now, none of this is to say that you won’t be able to play The Witcher 3 on a PC that comes closer to the original hardware requirements than this updated spec: “Not supported” doesn’t mean “won’t run,” after all, and the Steam Hardware and Software Survey indicates that a lot of you are still holding on to Windows 10—and there are even some true hardcores out there white-knuckling it with Windows 7. (Respect.)

It does mean, though, that you’re going to need hipper hardware than you had 10 years ago if you want to be sure The Witcher 3 and its new expansion will run, and more to the point, if you want CD Projekt to help you if it does not.

There is one other avenue of recourse for those with aging rigs, however, at least for users on Steam or GOG. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Classic, “an earlier version of the game”—CD Projekt’s support page doesn’t detail it further—is available as a beta option, so you can always roll back to that. CD Projekt also didn’t specify whether the older version of the game will support the upcoming expansion, so you might be hosed on that front—and you’re definitely hosed if you play The Witcher 3 on the Epic Games Store, as it does not support access to older builds.

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