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The dark theme of Gwent fits the Witcher lore perfectly, the 2,5D board with animated leaders takes a huge shit on the outdated comic board of Hearthstone and other, similar games.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.
