Gwent, a free-to-play card game based on the Witcher series leaves beta and gets an official public release today! The developer CD Projekt has released a new gameplay video on YouTube giving fans a chance to see the new title in action. Check it out below.
Having played a considerable amount of both Hearthstone and Elder Scrolls: Legends, Gwent looks significantly more complex right from the get go. The first two things that stand out and make the game noticeably more complicated is the fact that cards have a cost-value
Cost-Value
In Gwent, players need to build a deck with at least 25 cards. Each card has a cost to it, with stronger cards costing more. In the video, the player has a cost limit of 165 which is a rather bizarre number to cap the cost at. It’s highly likely that the cost limit can be increased as the player gains experience. Regardless, the maximum cost mechanic and seemingly indefinite number of cards a player can add (with respect to cost) means deck composition will be noticeably more complicated than some of the most popular card games out right now.
Two Rows
While Elder Scrolls: Legends featured two lanes, the only difference between them was that one of the lanes provided cards played there with “cover,” making them untargetable for one turn. Based on the Gwent video, it appears that the game will feature two lanes – one for melee and one for ranged attackers. Each lane will also provide certain bonuses to cards and some cards will receive even more bonuses if paired with specific cards in lane.
Availability
So far, the game is out only on PC, with planned releases for Xbox and PS4 on December 4th. If Eurogamer’s story on another Witcher-related game, “Thronebreaker” is anything to go by, we probably won’t be seeing a Switch port any time soon.
If you’re looking to give it a try, you can already download the game and client, but as of this morning, it appears that the version available for download is still the beta version. When I tried to play it, I ended up getting a message stating, “Could not connect, this game version is no longer supported.” Chances are CD Projekt Red will be updating this with the official release sometime later today.
