Gwent: The Witcher Card Game Open Beta – What You Need to Know

The Witcher 3 is arguably one of the best RPG games available on current-gen consoles right now (although the list is pretty small) and the game received critical acclaim by both reviewers and gamers alike. Whilst the game is focused around slaying monsters and an incredibly complicated crafting system, one aspect that fans love is the card game, Gwent. This side game was so popular that the fans screamed for a full game version – and the publisher’s delivered.

I had no idea this was coming my way until it ended up in my Xbox One inbox. Surprised, I quickly installed it and got stuck in to see if this game is everything that was promised at E3. As this is Beta version of the game, it did not give me access to everything so this is really just a first look.

The principle behind Gwent is a simple one. You must strategically place your cards on a playing field and try and score more points than your opponent. Whoever chalks up the most wins of the three rounds is classed as the winner. Cards are divided into a number of different units such as foot soldiers, archers and siege weapons that include catapults. Each card has its own points value and some have special abilities, such as spawning more of the same type of unit to the field or reducing the point’s value of your opponent’s card. There are also leader cards, which give your ‘men’ an added bonus and weather card and affect the points value of an entire unit type.

Whilst playing Gwent, there are a number of different variables that you need to consider at all times. If you throw down all your cards on the first round then you will have fewer cards to play during the consecutive rounds, forcing you to pass your turns. This allows your opponent to place more cards and score more points. Hero cards are also a massive factor within the game too – play them too early and it could cost you the game but play them too late and you may not be able to salvage the points you have already lost.

Although the basic mechanics of the game are smooth and each round of Gwent was fluid, the game already has some glaring issues that need to be addressed and others that may put people off.

The online matchmaking, in my experience, was poor and it took me some considerable time to try and connect to an online game. I understand this seems to be a problem with online games as a whole, but for a Beta that is so dependent on online play, this is an issue that should have been fixed before release (think of the For Honor Beta and you’re heading in the right direction).

The difficulty spikes during the practice matches, which are offline, is ridiculous. You get the impression that the computer constantly has the edge over you and that the game mechanics are heavily favoured towards the game’s AI. On many occasions, I drew poor cards to start off with and the AI then annihilated me in one round, forcing me into a cycle of continuous loss. This became tiring, quickly.

As you would expect from this style of game, in-game purchasing is featured heavily and I found it was a little on the pricey side. As you win matches you gain Card Kegs which always guarantee 1 rare card and five standard cards. But for the low price of £7.99 you can buy one premium Card Keg that contains 6 gold cards. This seems a little counter-productive as I was only able to place two gold cards in my custom deck at any one point.

But putting all that to one side, this game will eventually offer a full campaign mode and there is an insane number of cards to collect during gameplay which will keep you going for hours. Plus, you can also fuse cards together to create bigger and better cards which also add another nice little initiative to keep playing.

If the developers fix the difficulty spike and reveal a promising campaign then this game is shaping up to be a one of a kind. Also, at the time of writing this, Gwent has now become a Game Preview title so may be available on the Xbox Store.