CD Projekt Red have proven themselves over and over again. Being passionate about something lifts the quality of any game to new heights. With their previous masterpiece The Witcher 3, a game with a massive open- world to conquer, they’ve lifted the bar for new upcoming adventure games. Now that an era of Witcher chapters has ended, they want to expand that same universe with their digital TCG game Gwent. They took this card game and mixed it with a decent story to tell, to create Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales. Will this be the next big thing? Let’s find out.
Gwent started off as a mini-game within the Witcher universe but it turned out that this mini-game had so much more to offer. People were liking it so much, that CD Projekt Red turned it into a standalone game that could compete with other digital TCG games like Elder Scrolls: Legends and Hearthstone. Both TCG games have a big community and even though these games stand out on a competitive level, they both could improve story wise. Both games don’t offer a decent story and focus more on multiplayer aspects. It’s difficult for the developers to try something new, something different that would appeal to all of the fans and doesn’t get booted that easily. CD Projekt Red accepted the challenge and went for a whole new direction with their little baby named Gwent and it turned out to be something amazing.
Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales takes you to the same universe of The Witcher. However, this time you play as the graceful queen Meve of Lyria and Rivia. The queen is returning home due to a message she received from her son’s counselor. The councilor wants the queen to prepare her boy for the time when he has to take over his mother’s kingdom and rule it. Unfortunately, she didn’t t receive the warm welcome she hoped for and she notices that her kingdom is close to falling apart. Her kingdom has been attacked by Nilfgaard, a close-by kingdom. It’s your task to save your kingdom before it’s too late. This won’t be an easy task because you’ll be facing different confrontations: monsters, the Nilfgaard’s army, and your army’s low morale. Making important decisions will have a great impact on your story and it will influence your road to victory.
“They went for a whole new direction and it turned out to be something amazing!”
You control Meve from a top-down perspective and you move her around all over the map. It’s your own choice to explore the map and gather some precious materials or loot some treasures. During your exploration, you’ll be faced with numerous situations where you have to fight against monsters or villains. You will also find fast traveling points that can help you with traversing the map. Some of these battles are scripted and mandatory but some battles are a result of your own actions. Most of these battles can be solved with a normal match of Gwent but there are also battles with a very specific objective. These special missions can be very challenging but they help you understand some of Gwent’s mechanics better. It’s a more in-depth kind of battle that’ll test your skills for sure. The game gives you some freedom to do the main story at your own pace. There are a lot of side quests that give some great rewards which can help with creating your ultimate deck of Gwent.
Not only will you have to battle against different enemies but you’ll also have to manage the morale of your troops. Keeping your army’s morale high will help you defeat your enemies a lot easier because their starting statistics will be higher than their basic statistics. If the army’s morale lowers below standards, they’ll have worse statistics than normal. The army’s morale can be lifted in different ways, but the easiest way is getting to the roadside shrines. You can also help the inhabitants of the kingdom or even complete side quests to lift their spirits up. Be careful, because some of your actions will have a bad influence on your army’s morale.
You will also have to take a break from all those battles to manage your camp. The camp is important to strengthen your army by creating new cards and practice your deck against AI opponents to test your knowledge about Gwent. There are many upgrades that can be activated to improve your camp and receive some advantages. All of these upgrades can be completed by using gold, wood or troops. Just take into account that these resources can also be used to complete certain objectives during side quests or certain actions during the main story.
“Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales is definitely a nice change of scenery.”
Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales is a great way to play Gwent in a totally different way than your used to. It’s great to build up some immersion within this interesting universe. People that are familiar with Gwent’s mechanics will definitely have a blast with this game, but keep in mind that this RPG- experience of Gwent isn’t completely the same as the game you know from the Witcher games. Playing Gwent is all about getting the strongest army on the battlefield. You have to place units in different sections: Melee, Ranged and normally Siege. However, the Siege row has been completely removed and that’s a bit unfortunate because this limits the player in his deckbuilding. Nonetheless, the core mechanics are still there and these RPG-elements definitely make up for it. You also have a leader card which gives you an extra ability that can help you with defeating the enemy. Then again, Meve’s a leader card and her ability only works with foot soldiers, so you’re a bit forced to use these types of cards most of the time.
Even though you’re limited in your deckbuilding capacities, the game still stays interesting as there are different objectives to complete during the missions. Some battles can only be won if a certain character survives the confrontation or some battles can only be won with a limited amount of cards that you can use. This keeps the player on its toes and doesn’t take every battle for granted. It’s a great way to keep your interests, especially when some battles are very difficult to complete. This forces you to plan ahead and take caution with your steps.
The story itself has been presented very well. The art style is just so amazing to experience and hats off to the writers of the dialogues. The dialogues made the characters very convincing and the story believable. Voice acting was great and graphics decent. The game offers a lot of quality, even though it’s just a digital card game. The developers also offer different modes that suit your playstyle the most. There are Adventurer, Battle-Hardened and Bonebreaker. Adventurer lets you skip the battles and just experience the story and the other modes are just more challenging.
Conclusion:
Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales is definitely a nice change of scenery when you’re a bit bored of the normal standard digital card game. The mechanics of Gwent mixed with these RPG- elements and a decent story are a great experience. You’ll learn the basics of the TCG which while exploring the world of The Witcher. The battles are challenging enough to keep your interests for around 30 hours. If you’re done with the main story, you can always check out side stories and retrieve some interesting rewards. There’s also some replayability with the challenging modes. If you haven’t played Gwent already and you would like to explore some of The Witcher’s world, this is the perfect game for you.
8.5/10
tested on Xbox One
