Songs of the Past How to start A Bed of Thorns

Mild spoilers, marked as preview

A Bed of Thorns is the opening quest CD Projekt Red and Fool’s Theory used for the gamescom 2026 hands-off demos of Songs of the Past. The expansion is still a paid 2027 chapter. This page is a preview walkthrough, not a live quest log. If you want zero plot, stop after the first section and use Getting Started plus the Letten map. If you want the sequence journalists saw, keep reading. The story overview stays lighter; this page follows the quest’s jobs.

Songs of the Past sits after Blood and Wine. Geralt hoped to stay at Corvo Bianco. Dandelion’s trouble pulls him to Letten, the bard’s homeland in northern Redania, halfway between Kovir and Kaedwen if you take the Buina and the Nimnar. Voice work in the demos used the returning performances of Doug Cockle as Geralt and John Schwab as Dandelion. CD Projekt Red has said this is not a prequel that hands the camera to Ciri; The Witcher 4 remains her game, currently aimed at 2028.

The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past DLC - 13 Minutes of Gameplay

How to start it (as shown)

Demo Geralt wakes on a hill the morning after Belleteyn, Letten’s fertility and harvest night. He is hungover. Dandelion is gone. A unique lute — the bard’s, not a generic instrument — turns up in the wrong hands by a dock. Geralt does what Geralt does: he takes it back, including with his fists in at least one preview. That lute is the breadcrumb to the de Lettenhove estate, not a side collectible you vendor.

Expect the quest to assume Remastered systems. Combat camera, retargeting, and the silver chain are already on Geralt during this opening. You do not unlock the chain as a late-game schematic in the footage that has been shown. Install the free Remastered upgrade on 29 September 2026 before you ever see this quest in 2027.

The estate, the table, the cousin

The de Lettenhove house is Dandelion’s childhood home: a prosperous manor in an idyllic valley with a lake you can boat. NPCs work, drive carts, and keep festival routines denser than Velen. Talk to people twice. Preview quests unlocked later dialogue because Geralt overheard a fact from an unrelated villager.

Inside you meet the family that the de Lettenhove page tracks in full:

• A stern grandmother who runs the house.
• Gustav, Dandelion’s serious brother.
• Lilla, the cousin who becomes Geralt’s companion into the Garden of Thorns.
• Stories of ancestor Count Humbert, whose doomed love and a wronged witch sit under the harvests.

Lilla can be romanced. The gamescom demo played Geralt loyal to Yennefer and declined the warmer line. You can investigate with her without courting her. Triss was not in that demo. Do not rebuild a save around a cameo that has not been promised. Read Lilla before you freeze a Toussaint romance flag.

Dinner and estate scenes used more directed cameras than the 2015 talking-head default. That is presentation. You still pick lines.

The Garden of Thorns

The valley is idyllic except for one flawed spot. With Lilla, Geralt rides toward the Garden of Thorns to test a family legend. Trees tighten. Abandoned settlement pieces sit pierced by foliage. Light drops. This is where the expansion stops pretending Letten is only sailboats.

Combat shown on this path:

• Thornblooms (also called Thorn Flowers in some coverage): tall plants that shoot acid or poison and can fight from underground.
• Swarmions: cadavers in hornet clouds. Pull one body out with the chain; do not stand in the swarm.
• A giant burrowing centipede in Kotaku’s closed-door session, diving under steel.
• The Slumbering Knight at a well: Humbert’s corpse, seven feet of roots and bark. In one telling he offers Lilla a flower, then binds Geralt in vines. The right arm becomes a bark shield; tendrils pummel at range. The silver chain breaks the guard. Silver finishes the ancestor.

How to complete the preview version, in practical order: recover the lute, reach the estate, listen at the table, ride with Lilla, survive the garden, put the knight down. Branching consequences for the whole valley are confirmed as a design goal, not as a published flowchart. The story overview keeps the curse language spoiler-light if you want to stop before the well.

How to protect the run you care about

You cannot play A Bed of Thorns yet. You can protect the save that will.

• Finish or park Blood and Wine so Geralt can leave the vineyard. Getting Started is the checklist.
• Decide whether Geralt stays with Yennefer, Triss, or neither before Letten. The Lilla path is optional.
• Relearn Remastered combat after 29 September 2026 so the first Swarmion is not also a camera tutorial.
• Do not expect a skip that starts you in the Garden. The demos used Belleteyn as the door.

Songs of the Past is single-player. Nobody else is there to revive you at the well. Bring oils, a Toussaint-ready slot, and the patience to talk to Letten’s bakers before you talk to its dead count.