CD Projekt Red Talk Gwent Evolution

After much fan requesting, CD Projekt Red revealed that Gwent, the card game they introduced in Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, would be getting its own game. Complete with new modes and updated card graphics.

But more than that though, they wanted to create something that they didn’t have in Witcher 3. As they revealed to PC gamer, they wanted to appeal to everyone. Including, people that just wanted to play the game by themselves:

“Okay, but what if you don’t want to play online?” Lead designer Damien Monnier said. “Many people don’t want to play online, but still want to enjoy Gwent again. Let’s create a single player campaign. Let’s get the lead writer from Witcher, let’s get the lead quest designer from Witcher, let’s do a proper thing. And then they came on and said, ‘well what about if you explore this map and you’re able to interact with things around the world, and the way you interact will have consequences?’ And it just snowballed into this huge thing. We’re looking at, like, ten hours, but ten hours for [just] one campaign.”

What was also important was giving the player the depth to be able to great their own decks. Ones that didn’t exactly “look” like winner decks, but were in fact part of a greater plan:

“What we would deem superior decks don’t necessarily win a game,” he said. “It’s often based on the player’s skills…personally, I’m really happy with it. The first step for us with this alpha is introducing the player and the human element. It’s important that you feel it when someone is across the world and you’re playing against them. So right now you can see what the opponent is looking at, you can see if he or she is looking at his hand, looking at maybe when you place a card, you can see his highlight bring the card up…[you] can see when the player is looking into your graveyard, you can see when they’re looking into their graveyard. Why are they doing that? Is it because they’re going to play a gravedigger they can steal from your graveyard? Maybe it’s in your best interest to grab your stuff from there [first]?”

The choices will be yours when Gwent releases, but the first chance to play will be in a beta in September.