GWENT: The Witcher Card Game

I never played the beta so I can't compare, but the game is fun as it is now. Though I understand that people dislike the fact that they changed the game so much I think nonetheless that it's unfair to tank the reviews because of it. If the game is so different, then you're not reviewing the current game but former one's lack.... .

I started playing Gwent when it jumped into its Open Beta like 1,5 years ago and instantly fell in love with it. The game was fresh, creative and god damn satisfying to play. What many seem to forget though was Gwents susceptibility to unbalanced tactics and metas where after every patch the "best" way to win a game was quickly found. High level play went stale for a long time because even though there were many archetypes and stuff to play with CDPR never actually found a way out. And this is where CDPR shines; they realized the flaws of their game and took the necessary steps to overhaul literally everything. They did not push their game out of Open Beta as it was to grab some money and let it sink into nothingness a year or two afterwards. They want quality work and people to really play their games so they did not hesitate to go into a 6 month break to overhaul the complete game. The new iteration of Gwent is completely different and plays like a new game. Is it better? Maybe. Is it worse? Maybe. It all depends on your affection towards beta Gwent. But even now after they released their new Gwent they still keep digging into every screw and lever they can find. They listen to feedback and really want this to work out and they do not stop developing until everything works. Presentation and UI took a huuuge step forward. The dark theme of Gwent fits the Witcher lore perfectly, the 2,5D board with animated leaders takes a huge shit on the outdated comic board of Hearthstone and other, similar games. The card art is fucking amazing, taunting opponents is ruthless and everything feels as brutal and straightforward as it should be. I have sunk around 900 hours of gameplay into Gwent in the last two years, more than any other game I ever played. I did not even play that much in one day, but consistent throughout the week, months and years. Because it got me hooked into a world like no other.

I started playing durring beta gwent and although I like many others did not like Homecoming at first I did give it a fair try and had some fun because of the novelty of it at times. I still play it semi-regularly but the direction the devs took a while ago and have consistently followed ultimately make it a poor game. The main arguemnt against beta gwent is that it allowed insane strats that were impossible to balance but now what we have is basically a simple braindead mobile game where 99% of the cards are boost, heal or damage. That is all that the new gwent has to offer and with the provision system you can clearly see the dev's approach to balance. 1 point = 1 provision, if a simple condition of the card isnt met then the card will underscore by 1-2 points, if you fullfill the condition you overscore by 1-2 points. That is all new gwent has to offer in terms of deck building. The visuals are weird...why am I slamming the cards into mud. Makes no sense? Well you're free to buy the tavern table board for 15 usd. Why do we need to the ugly leader 3d models that are universally disliked and look weird with the 2d cards being played? Well so you can buy skins of course! With the releases on Android and iOS updates that make the game less and less newbie friendly are common and a lot of mobile game design progress can be seen - make the game just fun enough to keep playing and not uninstall but also frustrating to progress without paying. Replacing the daily reward system with journey that of course has a premium component makes the resources more scares for the majority of the playerbase despite what posts from the devs try to make it seem like. No more small rewards between levels, no full mill value after substantial nerfs to cards at the end of the season after you spent your resources on crafting them...cosmetic-only premium cards will be almost impossible to get after the next update. Sadly, at this point I would not recommend new players to install.

This "game" is a shadow of what it was in beta. In beta it was fun, smart and dynamic - now it's barely playable boredom with greedy monetization practices and piece of sh*t balance. Actually it's not a game at all it budget grinding machine for CD Project. Constant incompetent balance changes turn to garbage builds and cards you own. Every second game is either against Nilfgaard or Monster White Frost decks. Why? Because incompetent developer biased with those two factions making anything except their bias uncompetitive. Another reason for this make you pay annually for compendiums. Price point. It's trash. For it's price for the cost of 1 single paid character from Witcher 3 or especially storyline you can buy pretty cool singleplayer game especially on sale. Final words. To CD Project company - put your sh*t together, get that imbicile Badowski fired and make actual games not slot machines!