Nearly 19 Years After The Original Teaser, Geralt Can Finally Use Chain In Witcher

A weapon teased in the very first Witcher game, and never once touched since, is finally showing up in Geralt’s hands.

A Nearly Two-Decade-Old Tease Finally Pays Off

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Songs of the Past got its first proper trailer at Gamescom Opening Night Live, and the biggest surprise wasn’t the new region or its monsters. It was Geralt pulling out a chain weapon to drag an enemy in close before finishing them off. CD Projekt Red level design lead Miles Tost confirmed on stage exactly where that weapon comes from.

“This chain is a weapon that is new in the game, but many people, perhaps hardcore Witcher fans, will realize that this is a weapon we first showed in The Witcher 1 intro,” he said.

The original Witcher’s 2007 opening cinematic showed Geralt using a chain to subdue a monster before the actual gameplay ever started. It never appeared as a usable weapon again, not in The Witcher, The Witcher 2, The Witcher 3, or any of their expansions. Songs of the Past finally changes that after nearly 19 years.

Tost framed the choice as a deliberate send-off for Geralt’s story before The Witcher 4 shifts focus to Ciri. “This is Geralt’s last adventure before we pass the torch on to Ciri, and we wanted to go out with a bang,” he said. Songs of the Past is being developed by Fool’s Theory, a studio staffed with several Witcher 3 veterans, including Tost’s own former mentor, and takes Geralt to a new region called Letten, described as an idyllic land of festivals and folklore hiding a dark secret underneath.

The weapon’s return also has a forward-looking angle: the chain closely resembles one Ciri is expected to use in The Witcher 4, giving this expansion a quiet thematic link to the game that follows it.

How The Chain Actually Works In Combat

CD Projekt Red broke down the chain’s mechanics in more detail through a follow-up video posted on The Witcher’s official X account. “Obviously one of the biggest gameplay additions that we are seeing is Geralt’s Chain,” a developer explained.

You can decide which weak spot you wanna target, and then after you release the chain you bring the enemy to you, and if you tap attack in the right time window you’re gonna execute the finisher.”

Asked whether the chain can hit multiple enemies at once or only a single target, the response placed it in its own category rather than a straightforward ranged weapon. “The chain is actually not just a ranged weapon, it’s kind of in between the two, and that makes it kind of a cool, versatile weapon to make the combat more fluid.” Using it isn’t free, either. It draws from Geralt’s Adrenaline points, the same resource tied to some of his other combat abilities.

“The feature is still in a work in progress, like we said, but currently it ties into the adrenaline mechanic. So yeah, it doesn’t come for free, because that would be kind of overpowered.”

There’s also a real trade-off built into equipping it. Since the chain fills a ranged combat role, it takes the crossbow’s equipment slot, meaning players will have to choose between the two rather than carrying both at once.

CD Projekt Red confirmed directly that “you cannot have them equipped at the same time.” Outside hands-on previews back this up. In the newly released footage, we can see the chains being used against an enemy type called Swarmions, pulling individual foes out of a group or keeping the pack at bay, and it can be aimed manually to target specific body parts in a slowed-down aiming mode similar to the base game’s crossbow.

Songs Of The Past Launches In 2027

Songs of the Past launches in 2027 as a paid expansion on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2, with no firm release date confirmed yet. It arrives after The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered, a free overhaul launching September 29 with more than 30 gameplay and visual improvements, and ahead of The Witcher 4, which CD Projekt Red has confirmed is targeting a 2028 release.

For a franchise that’s been teasing this specific detail since its very first game, watching it finally show up feels like a fittingly small, deliberate way to close out Geralt’s story before Ciri takes the lead.