New Singleplayer Gwent game announced for this year
How about a round of Gwent?
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The world of The Witcher is busier than ever. While Geralt may have mostly hung up his silver and steel at the conclusion of Blood and Wine, the white-haired witcher’s exploits are thriving on-screen. The Netflix adaptation enjoys continued success, and many spin-offs are currently in the pipeline. And now The Witcher may be about to return to PC and Consoles in a big way. CD Projekt Red have announced a standalone, single-player Gwent game coming later in 2022.
Inspired by The Witcher 3’s beloved card-battling minigame, the in-development game is currently dubbed “Project Golden Nekker”. Its namesake is one of the species of ravenous beasties Geralt despatches in The Witcher 2 and 3. Project Golden Nekker – while standing as its own experience – will have ties to CD Projekt’s existing Gwent digital TCG. The project is being developed by members of CD Projekt’s existing Gwent team.
Gwent past and future
While this is all exciting, it would be a shame to not mention CD Projekt’s previous single-player Gwent title. The Witcher Tales: Thronebreaker was a genuinely excellent RPG that sadly failed to reach a wide audience, falling short of CD Projekt’s estimations. As a result, it seems as though The Witcher Tales have been indefinitely suspended. But those that did try out the game discovered bleak and impressive writing easily on-par with the series’ mainline games. And in addition to this, card-game mechanics were deployed in dizzyingly inventive ways. Aside from the TCG-esque gameplay of main missions, players were treated to optional puzzles that expanded the scope of what should be possible in Gwent, and card-games as a whole. Puzzles simulating boss battles? For sure. A whole stealth minigame in card form? Absolutely. Just outright turning Gwent into Hearthstone for a single mission? Thronebreaker has you covered.
An unheard warning?
Unfortunately, Thronebreaker also serves as a potential warning. While the Gwent content of the game itself was extremely solid, the console release of Thronebreaker was marred by a myriad of technical issues. Nigh-constant crashes were reported, often multiple times within the span of an hour. Hours of progress were frequently lost, leading many to give up on the otherwise excellent game out of frustration.
Perhaps only the relatively small number of sales prevented this from becoming much larger news. If Thronebreaker had been a success on the level of The Witcher 3, might the abysmal technical issues have caused larger outcry? And if so, would the developers have been granted enough time to prevent Cyberpunk 2077 from suffering the same fate? It can only be hoped that after two console launches beset with technical issues in a row, CD Projekt will have learned from its mistakes. If so, there is nothing standing in the way of Projekt Golden Nekker returning the studio to critical acclaim.
