The "Blood and Wine" expansion for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was altered because of the artists, Pawel Sasko (lead quest designer) said in an interview.
The team was aiming for a DLC that wouldn’t feel weaker than "Hearts of Stone" while racing against very tight deadlines, and that pressure shaped a lot of decisions.
Originally they imagined a druidic forest, but the art team pushed back — claiming they couldn’t realize that vision. The response prompted a pivot: designers sketched a fairy-tale world where many familiar characters are grotesquely twisted; the artists assumed that approach would be easier to pull off.
It turned out to be the opposite — the fairy-tale route proved more complex and costly, and, Sasko admits, the druidic forest would likely have been the cheaper, simpler path (i.e., hindsight is funny).
Earlier, Sasko talked about the most memorable moment in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt; for him the battle for Kaer Morhen remains a standout episode.
Looking forward: in 2027 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is set to receive the expansion Songs of the Past on PS5, Xbox Series, and PC — the devs even updated the PC system requirements for this addition. The creators had hoped to ship the DLC in 2026, but chose to delay release to give the project more time for polish, according to their notes (see planned release details here).