Key Highlights:
- A new DLC for The Witcher 3 is reportedly in the works, set to release this year.
- The DLC will likely introduce the region of Zerrikania, and will tie in Ciri’s path to becoming a Witcher herself.
- The DLC could also be released as a standalone title, built using Unreal Engine 5.
Emboldened in their new found success, CD Projekt Red does not seem to be stopping anytime soon, as rumors of an additional DLC for The Witcher 3 have seemingly resurfaced online.
While we’ve already known the existence of such a DLC for quite some time now, details surrounding its plot and presentation have been mostly unknown – that is, until quite recently.
Everything We Know About 2026’s Rumored Witcher 3 DLC
As mentioned initially from a report by Polish website Noble Securities, a third Witcher 3 expansion is currently in the works at CD Projekt Red, set to be released sometime later this year.
It should be noted that this is no ordinary DLC, and is instead expected to be fully feature complete with a fresh new region and story of its own (much like the ‘Blood and Wine’ quest).
This information was also reiterated by the Polish branch of IGN, who claimed to have known the rumor for a good few years. As far as the content itself is concerned, there is a lot to digest here.
For starters, the DLC is expected to be in the region of Zerrikania, a land of scorching sun and deserts. It has been described as the Dune of the Witcher series, which does sound quite exciting.
The region of Zerrikania should also bring with it the School of Manticore, who were also mentioned in Blood and Wine. It is believed that this particular Witcher school were testing the ‘Trial of the Grasses’ on young women, which could also open a potential pathway into how Ciri became a Witcher in the upcoming sequel (that is, The Witcher 4).
The DLC has been described to be ‘new, great content that fans will love’, and we sure hope that CD Projekt Red lives up to the hype this time around.
There Is a Chance That This Could Be a Standalone, Unreal Engine 5 Project
An alternative to the region of Zerrikania would be Kovir and Poviss, the snow capped regions of the North. However, given that much of the marketing of The Witcher 4 already shows these same areas, it is highly speculated that these two regions will be restricted to the sequel only.
It’s also a great way to differentiate the DLC from its tie in sequel, and having a separate biome is a great way for the developers to experiment, which should in turn result in some unique experiences that do not overlap with The Witcher 4.
Zerrikania is also one of the few unexplored regions of The Witcher series of video games, and sounds like a perfect starting place for the DLC.
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There’s also the fact that CD Projekt Red likely has very few developers (if any at all) working on the aging Red Engine that powers The Witcher 3. Most work has already likely shifted to Unreal Engine 5, the same engine powering the fourth entry.
As such, developing a DLC as part of the base Witcher 3 game from scratch would be a very daunting task indeed, and CD Projekt Red could very well be releasing this ‘DLC’ as a standalone, Unreal Engine 5 title.
Either way though, you will likely have to play through the entirety of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (including its two story based DLCs) in order to have a better understanding of the story being told here.
