Gwent expands into the gothic and gory on March 28th
Witchervania
Vampires, werewolves, blood moons and all other things best suited to a Belmont than a Witcher will be the first focus of Gwent: The Witcher Card Game's first card expansion. Despite other online CCGs making expansions an annual or seasonal thing, Crimson Curse is set to be Gwent's first. While I feel that CD Projekt Red's card-slinger never drew the crowds the way Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering has (its solo expansion, Thronebreaker became its own standalone game), it's nice to see that the studio haven't thrown in the towel. See a portentous little teaser trailer below.
The new expansion is set to add over 100 cards. 14 per faction, plus 31 new neutral cards. Some of them have immediately intriguing tactical uses, like Samum. Meant to represent the explosive grenades from the Witcher series, it does three damage to a target unit, and on a successful kill (through the new Deathblow key-word) it shifts adjacent units to the other row. The kind of trick that can turn a match in some situations. They've only unveiled a few cards so far, but you can check them out on the official page here. The new Bleeding effect on Plumards looks particularly annoying.
Story-wise, it's building a bit on The Witcher's vampire lore. Fancy-pants vampire Dettlaff van der Eretein (a Higher Vampire who Geralt has tussled with in The Witcher 3: Blood & Wine expansion) is going to war. As anyone who's seen the new Castlevania anime series (which is brilliant and I won't hear anyone say otherwise), this is going to end badly for everyone. There should be a cornucopia of new undead critters and vampire-slaying heroes added to the card list.
The Crimson Curse expansion hits Gwent on March 28th. The game remains free-to-play, and you can find it here. You can read a little more about the expansion on its page here, along with the first few card reveals.