By day, Letten is the kind of village Geralt of Rivia could ride through on a postcard: rolling green fields, tidy villas, and not a single stretch of bog. Then the sun sets.
That day-night whiplash is essentially the entire pitch behind Songs of the Past, the upcoming Witcher 3 expansion that CD Projekt Red spent all of Wednesday parading around Gamescom, drip-feeding DLC clips across the day for over 15 minutes of gameplay in total.
Dandelion’s in trouble again
Some habits die hard. Geralt headlines the expansion once more, digging into a dark secret buried in the rural community of Letten — where, predictably, Dandelion appears to have landed himself in trouble yet again.
The footage begins with the witcher heading off to track down a friend who went missing during a party. He climbs onto his horse, and the game takes the opportunity to flaunt scenery that feels like a pointed departure from the base game’s grim swamps and marshland.
Daylight Letten, though, isn’t the honest one. When night arrives, the town’s second face emerges, and that sunny facade looks very much like a cover for something far darker.
The chain is the new toy
Then, inevitably, Geralt starts killing monsters.
Judging a combat sequence without a controller in hand is close to impossible, but the clip does offer a glimpse of Geralt swinging his chain, a weapon introduced specifically for the DLC. It’s used to scatter large enemy packs, yanking stragglers toward him for a stab in true Scorpion fashion.
Under the hood, it will reportedly behave a bit like the crossbow, slowing time down as you set up the attack.
The remaster lands first
Songs of the Past isn't due until sometime next year, so the wait is genuine. The studio’s other reveal, however, is far nearer.
During Gamescom Opening Night Live on Tuesday, CD Projekt Red announced that The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt — Remastered arrives Sept. 29, handed out free to anyone who already owns the game. This refreshed take on the 2015 RPG ships with a lengthy changelog, from sharper graphical fidelity to overhauled combat and a rebuilt skill system.
All of those upgrades will carry over into the expansion. Between the remaster and this first substantial look at the DLC, Gamescom has been a fine week to be a Witcher fan.
What remains to be seen is whether CD Projekt Red can sustain the illusion: a sleepy holiday village under the sun, a gothic nightmare after dark, and Dandelion stuck somewhere in between, making everything worse.