The Witcher 3 Remastered: When to Play Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, and How New Game+ Works

There is no DLC menu to manage. If you owned the base game before the Remastered, both expansions were unlocked for you free; if you bought the game new, they came in the box. In game, each expansion announces itself the way normal content does: its opening quest appears in your journal once you are in the right part of the world, and the game flags expansion content clearly as you go.

That leaves only the timing decisions, and they differ per expansion — which is why they get separate sections.

Hearts of Stone is a self-contained storyline of roughly ten hours, set on the map you are already exploring — the countryside north-east of Novigrad and around Oxenfurt. Its opening quest, Evil's Soft First Touches, starts from a notice board in that area, and the content is tuned for a Geralt of level 30 or higher.

For a first run, it slots in flexibly. You can pick it up during the late main story once your level is there, or treat it as the first thing you do after the credits. It does not demand a new region, a new build or any preparation beyond your level — and because it is compact, it also works as a palate cleanser between the main story and the much larger second expansion.

Blood and Wine is the big one: an entire new region, the duchy of Toussaint, with its own capital at Beauclair, its own quest lines, and a running time in the 20–30 hour range by community estimates. Its opening quest, Envoys, Wineboys, begins with envoys you meet in Velen, and it is tuned for level 34+.

Everything about its design says "last." It assumes an endgame Geralt, it is where the game's final systems live — the Mutations endgame build system unlocks here (it has its own guide in this collection), alongside the top Grandmaster tier of witcher gear and the dye system — and its tone is a deliberate send-off. Played in the recommended order, it is the last chapter of the whole saga. Reached early via the standalone start, it is still excellent — but it lands differently, and section 4 covers that trade honestly.

You are not trapped once you go: after the opening beats, fast travel connects Toussaint to the rest of the map, so contracts, merchants and unfinished business elsewhere remain reachable.

The main menu offers three ways to begin: the full game, Hearts of Stone only, or Blood and Wine only. The expansion-only options hand you a pre-built Geralt at an appropriate level, with sensible gear and points to spend, and drop you straight at the expansion's opening quest.

It is a genuinely useful feature — for returning players, or for a curious evening's taste. For a first run, know what you are trading away:

Our recommendation is simple: full game first, expansions in journal order. Keep the standalone starts in your pocket for the day you want to revisit one expansion without replaying everything before it.

Put together, the intended shape of a complete first playthrough looks like this:

One pacing note: expansion enemies do not scale down to an underlevelled visitor. If you wander into Hearts of Stone content at level 22, the game will not stop you — it will simply hurt. The level numbers in this guide are the game's own recommendations, and they are honest ones.

New Game+ is unlocked from any save that has finished the main story, and started from the main menu. Under the game's long-documented classic behaviour, here is the deal:

You keep: your character level, your equipment, your skills and ability points, and your money.

The world resets: the story starts over from the beginning, quests and choices are all in front of you again, and enemies are scaled up to match your carried-over strength. The level cap rises to 100, so a Geralt who finished around level 35 has a whole second curve to climb. Witcher gear diagrams reappear in upgraded "Legendary" form, giving the treasure hunts a second life at the new power level.

For achievement hunters and build tinkerers, NG+ is the natural second run: harder world, finished character, different choices — and it is the comfortable place to mop up whatever a first run missed (this collection's achievements roadmap plans around exactly that).

One point needs to be stated exactly, because the internet states it sloppily in both directions: CD PROJEKT RED has not announced any changes to New Game+ in the Remastered. NG+ does not appear in the official 5.0 change list at all. It has not been "confirmed unchanged," and it has not been revealed as secretly reworked — officially, nothing was announced, and the feature continues to be maintained alongside the game (the post-launch patches have continued to service surrounding systems such as My Rewards).

So the working posture for Remastered players is: the classic NG+ behaviour described in section 6 is the documented baseline, the skill-point refund is the one concrete interaction between NG+ and the 5.0 changes, and any site claiming more than that is guessing in one direction or the other.

Can I start Hearts of Stone before finishing the main story? Yes. Once its opening quest is available and you are around level 30, it runs happily alongside the late main game — it was designed to interleave. Blood and Wine can also be started early, but everything about it works better saved for last.

Are the level numbers (30+ / 34+) hard gates? No — they are the game's own recommendations, not locks. Starting underlevelled is allowed and painful in equal measure; the intended experience assumes you arrive at the suggested strength.

Do I need the expansions to start New Game+? No. NG+ unlocks from finishing the main story, expansions or not. That said, a completion save made after both expansions is the strongest NG+ starting point.

Does my Gwent deck carry between the base game and expansions? Yes — your card collection is part of your character, shared across the whole game, expansions included. (Collecting it fully is another matter; see the missables checklist in this collection.)

If I use a standalone expansion start, can I fold that Geralt into my main save later? No. Standalone starts are separate save lines with a pre-built character and default world state. They are for tasting or revisiting an expansion, not a shortcut into your own playthrough.

Did the Remastered change how New Game+ works? Nothing has been announced. The official 5.0 change list does not mention NG+ in either direction — the one definite 5.0 interaction is that loading an old save refunds your skill points for the new tree, whatever you load it for.