The open beta of Gwent: The Witcher Card Game is now available, allowing players to participate in what is essentially the soft launch of the digital trading card game.
The spinoff of the card game played in The Witcher 3 was confirmed by developer CD Projekt Red in June 2016.
'Gwent' Open Beta Now Available
The Gwent open beta can now be downloaded on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, with players offered to try out the full game. Being in the open beta stage, players should understand that the developers are still tweaking things in the game, so any progress made by players could be reset at any time.
Any progress made in the open beta, however, is meant to be carried over into the final release of Gwent. This makes it function like a soft launch, allowing players who were not able to sign up for the game's closed beta to try their hand at the digital trading card game.
The Basics Of 'Gwent'
The game starts by having players choose their faction. There are several factions in Gwent, namely the Nilfgaard, the Monsters, the Skellige, the Northern Realms, and the Scoia'tael. Each faction has its own playstyle and leaders with powerful abilities.
The game board is made up of three rows, with the front row for melee units, the middle row for ranged units, and the back row for siege units. Some units can be placed on more than one row, while some can move between the rows each turn.
Unlike other trading card games, players do not spend resources that limit the number of cards that can be played each turn. In addition to cards that represent the player's units, there are disloyal units that can be played on the opponent's board and weather cards that affect entire rows.
The cards in a deck have various power levels, represented as bronze, silver, and gold. Decks can only have up to six silver and four gold cards, as a means to balance the power level of decks. Cards can be acquired through playing campaigns, receiving daily rewards, and purchasing from the in-game shop.
Each game has three rounds, and the winner is the player who wins two out of three rounds. The winner is determined by whoever has the most points when all three rows are combined at the end of each round.
'Gwent' vs. 'Hearthstone'
Gwent is the newest challenger in the digital trading card game space that is currently dominated by Hearthstone. Similar to Gwent, Hearthstone is a spinoff of another massive franchise, Blizzard's Warcraft.
SuperData expects the digital card game market to be worth $1.4 billion this year, and CD Projekt Red is looking to grab a fair share. Gwent is already making waves though, as Hearthstone players have started to move to the new digital card game.
One of the most frustrating issues with Hearthstone is the large number of random effects in the game, which downplays the significance of skill and places the outcome of certain matches on luck. While this is not an issue for casual games, competitive players are regularly frustrated by the randomness of Hearthstone as they can lose even if they play much more skillfully than their opponents.
Gwent, meanwhile, is looking to eliminate randomness, and will even offer players a choice between three cards for the rare slot of each in-game pack they open.
