Hello, my gaming family and friends! It’s me, Sumroad and welcome to The Modern Gamer, I was walking around Skellig and found this great place next to Gedyneith to sit down and write down a little something for you guys. The view is just amazing I’m just guilty of telling you this but man! It’d be a crime not to acknowledge how beautiful this place really is. Anyway… a druid came by and we started talking, (he’s a friendly fella who would’ve known!), then he mentioned a game called GWENT and I found myself immediately interested. Would you like to know my impressions of it? Of course, you do!
Okay, GWENT! If you have played The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, I believe you know a few things about this, if you don’t, then let me tell you a couple things about it. Basically, it is a card game, within The Witcher game. There are a few decks to choose from with different focus, playstyles and abilities. Now, CD PROJEKT RED have developed GWENT as a standalone game using the basic mechanics of the original game and let me tell you, they’ve done a pretty nice job.
As I said, the mechanics of the game are relatively simple, you have to choose a deck, then the cards are drawn, and at this point you have the option to redraw if you’re not satisfied with your current set of cards. Whenever you feel comfortable enough, you are taken to the battlefield. You have 25 cards in your deck and 10 will be drawn to play at once. The match is played in three rounds so whoever wins two, wins. This is important because sometimes your cards can be not good enough to win the current round, so you can choose to save some draws for a final round instead of going all-in, I mean, it is your choice, and it’s nice the game gives you that option. GWENT isn’t limited by “energy” like other card games, which means, you can play the card you want right out of the gate, and let me tell you folks… this is just a great feature, because you just have to worry about your cards’ abilities instead of saving or waiting for “energy” to replenish. How does this impact GWENT? It is positive no doubt, making the matches blazingly fast and fun, focusing in the most important thing in a game like this…the cards.
You also have main abilities depending on the deck you’re playing and their use is limited so be careful and find the right moment to strike. In the end, you’re always looking for a good combination of cards so this could also be your last hope to win a match. Just remember your opponent will do the same so outsmarting them is key.
Speaking of cards, you have several options divided in factions (classic!): Nilfgaard, Monsters, Skellige, Northern Realms, Scoia’Tael and Syndicate, each one of them has their particularities and they have a very balanced set of abilities to match every single playstyle. Obviously, there’s a deck builder, in here you can craft, mill or transmute your cards and ultimately, make your own decks suiting your playstyle the best. If you go to the filters, you’ll notice there are more than a few things to play and explore around, like cards sets and crafting materials.
GWENT also features animated versions of the cards and you can get them by using Meteorite Powder, one of the game’s currencies that is available in the Shop. This place… The Shop, has plentiful of options, some cosmetic and some RNG based, like card kegs, all in all, the in-game purchases are basically a flip coin in the long run, excluding the starter packs of course, but they’re focused on cosmetic and card kegs. To be honest, this isn’t bad and if you’re a casual player, it won’t matter much to you if you don’t buy anything, I always recommend to avoid RNG purchases, even when their offers are Premium there’s always a good chance of not getting a fair deal. On the other hand, if you plan to go competitive, purchasing is the fastest and arguably the only way to achieve it in a short term. Keep in mind that you can buy card kegs by spending Ore, and how the heck do we get Ore? Well… there’s a Reward Book where you can spend your reward points. This book is set to manage your progression so it is very important to keep adding every point to it.
Technically the game is very well executed, graphics are great, no complains there actually, the cards are beautifully crafted and the SFX and music are really nice. Nothing invasive just immersive. I really liked how it is designed overall, the UI is very intuitive despite the several options it’s not overwhelming.
Wrapping this up… GWENT is a great game, it really is, the game mechanics are very well designed as well as the abilities and synergies. It gives the player more than a few options to build a highly custom deck while giving options to keep progressing. Journeys are a great way to keep the players engaged. Right now, we’re on the 5th Journey and it is basically a progression incentive, built on levels. As long as you keep doing missions and completing tasks, you’ll get more and more rewards. There’s also a Premium option so you can skip some levels instantly giving you some juicy rewards. So, is GWENT worth playing? It is, it suits very different playstyles and players as well, giving you options instead of building progression walls. I mean, there are progression walls of course but even a casual player can enjoy the game. RNG purchases keeps the game balanced in a way by slowing down the most avid buyers. Anyway… if you want a really nice card game, go get it, like… now! I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy it!
Ok, time to go, my family and friends! I really need to keep exploring this valley. Please, be safe and enjoy your gaming weekend. Until the next one here, in The Modern Gamer… This is Sumroad signing out, cheers!
Developers: CD Projekt RED
Platforms: Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Steam, Xbox One, Xbox Series X