CD Projekt RED, the Polish studio behind The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, announced that its upcoming expansion, Songs of the Past, will not include Russian voice acting.
When the expansion launches, the game’s audio will default to Polish, though the text will still be fully translated, as before. Russian voice acting will remain in the base game and its first two expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine.
The change stems from CD Projekt RED’s decision, made in March 2022, to stop working with tax residents of Russia and Belarus.
The announcement set off heated debate among Russian fans of the game. The post with the official announcement in the game’s Russian-language Telegram community had drawn more than 2,000 comments by the time this article was published, far more than the fewer than 300 comments left on neighboring posts announcing new content.
Gamescom opened in Cologne on August 25, and CD Projekt RED unveiled a trailer for the new Witcher 3 expansion on the event’s first day.
In Songs of the Past, the game’s protagonist, the witcher Geralt of Rivia, travels to a new region called Letten, home to his friend Dandelion. The expansion is set for release in 2027, though an exact date has not been announced.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the cult third installment in the Witcher game series, following Geralt, a professional monster hunter, in a world based on the novels of Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. CD Projekt RED released the game in 2015.
Earlier in August, CD Projekt RED announced plans to release The Witcher 4 in 2028, though an exact release date has not yet been announced.
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