Today is a sad day for card sharks who enjoy Gwent: The Witcher Card Game. The developers have announced there will be no more new cards added to the mobile card game in 2024, nor will there be online tournaments. Updates for the game will become more insular as developers are shuffled onto other projects.
Have no fear: Gwent isn’t going away just yet. There are still 72 cards planned for release next year. After that, the game will shift to a “seasonal” model that rewards building decks in different ways. The developers also plan to allow the community to vote on balancing changes. I’ve never been a big believer in design by committee, but I guess it doesn’t really matter for a sunsetting game that isn’t receiving any new expansions. Don’t worry—the devs won’t allow the community to implement anything too wild, and regular monthly balancing will still occur for 2023.
CDPR released a Gwent roguelike this year, which is advertised on Steam as a standalone “expansion” to the base card game. While the concept of Gwent: Rogue Mage sounded neat, it had a mixed reception. Some people didn’t want to go first in every match. Others thought that the game was too simplified. Achievement hunters hated the RNG nature of the randomized events. But at least Rogue Mage is a single-player game. A live service like the base Gwent game requires constant staff, and CDPR has tons of projects on the horizon.
The next-gen upgrade for Witcher 3 is coming later this month, and the next Witcher game is already being developed in Unreal Engine 5. The developers are also remaking the very first title in the series to feel more like an open world game. So if you enjoy the real-time combat and the overall worldbuilding of the Witcher series, maybe it’s a good thing that the card game is winding down.
And it’s not like Gwent was even the best way to play the card game—the real OG will always be the version in Witcher 3.