CD Projekt Red has officially updated the minimum PC system requirements for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, designating Windows 11 as the required baseline operating system ahead of the game’s third major expansion, Songs of the Past. The technical policy change, which also applies to Cyberpunk 2077, marks an immediate end to internal quality assurance testing and driver optimization for Microsoft’s older operating system across the studio’s active titles.
While existing installations of both games remain functional on legacy hardware for the time being, CD Projekt Red confirmed that future updates will no longer guarantee stability or boot functionality under Windows 10. The most significant point of impact for The Witcher 3 will coincide with the release of Songs of the Past in 2027, which raises the base game’s hardware floor alongside its OS requirements. Should incoming patches prevent the title from running on unsupported setups, developers noted that players can utilize platform version rollback features to down-patch their client to a previous, compatible build.
The requirement bump underscores an ongoing push across major studios to shed legacy operating system dependencies, though it creates operational friction for a substantial portion of the active audience. Steam hardware survey data shows that approximately 23 percent of PC gamers continue to run Windows 10. Given that PC purchases account for nearly half of The Witcher 3‘s 65 million lifetime sales, the strict Windows 11 requirement could leave millions of existing owners unable to access new content without upgrading their operating systems.
Microsoft recently extended its security patch support for Windows 10 through October 2027, but CD Projekt Red reiterated that this extension will not alter its engineering timeline. Studio officials confirmed that QA resources are being concentrated exclusively on modern operating environments and updated graphics APIs to ensure optimal performance for upcoming content releases.
Source: GameRant
