The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt gets new minimum PC requirements ahead of Songs of the Past's release

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an eleven-year-old game, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily one that'll be a breeze for your PC no matter your specs. With a new expansion officially confirmed to be launching next year, CD Projekt Red is upping the minimum system requirements for The Witcher 3.

As outlined in a new post on CD Projekt Red's technical support site, in the next update for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the minimum system requirements are shooting up quite a bit. First off, the game will only be compatible with Windows 11, as will Cyberpunk 2077, as Microsoft ended support for Windows 10 in October of last year. That means CPUs supported on Windows 11 and GPUs with active driver support for Windows 11 will be the only CPUs and GPUs you can use going forward. It's also worth noting HDDs aren't going to be supported anymore, either, which could be a real shame for anyone who doesn't care for long loading times.

The specific minimum specs are listed below:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600, Intel Core i5-8400
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660, AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB
VRAM: 6 GB
RAM: 12 GB
Storage: 70 GB SSD
OS: 64-bit Windows 11

This is a bit of a far cry from the current Steam minimum requirements, which still reflect the pre-Songs of the Past version of the game. They are as follows:

OS: 64-bit Windows 7, 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1)
PROCESSOR: Intel CPU Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz / AMD A10-5800K APU (3.8GHz)
MEMORY: 6 GB RAM
GRAPHICS: Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 660 / AMD GPU Radeon HD 7870
DIRECTX: Version 11
STORAGE: 50 GB available space

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt now requires double the RAM it did, as well as a much more powerful CPU and GPU for minimum settings. The new minimum aren't' too far from the old recommended PC requirements, but they're still a significant boost even then. If you're not looking to upgrade your PC for an update to a decade-old game, then CD Projekt Red recommends you stick with an older version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. These new requirements may also explain why the third expansion hasn't yet been announced for Nintendo Switch.