THRONEBREAKER: THE WITCHER TALES
Taking a Geralternative approach to the collectible card game
You know how in fantasy epics like Game Of Thrones everyone’s family history is tangled and contested? Thronebreaker comes with a lineage to rival any of Westeros’ noble families. It goes back to the ’90s, when Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher novels first introduced the fictional card game of Gwent. This was adapted into a minigame for The Witcher 3, proving so popular it got its own standalone title. A spin-off that, in turn, begat its own spin-off – and thus Thronebreaker was born. The game is inextricably tied the free-to-play Gwent. There’s a link to download Gwent from the Store in the main menu, and finding treasure chests here unlocks cards for use in multiplayer matches there. But what Thronebreaker is trying to achieve is closer to The Witcher 3 – a storyled single-player campaign, with memorable characters, sharp dialogue, and a Rivian ton of side-quests to complete.
That might sound like an odd fit for a game which is ultimately about laying cards on a virtual table. But Thronebreaker expands beyond the card games, with an RPG-style world to explore. You move from village to village, chatting with NPCs, collecting resources, and generally getting into trouble. This part of the game presents you with a host of decisions, both moral (who will you side with in this conflict?) and tactical (what resources are you willing to spend to help them?). Whatever you choose, the results are – in classic The Witcher 3 fashion – often not what you expected. Which is where the cards come in.
CARD TIMES
The way this works isn’t too dissimilar to a musical, where moments of high drama cause characters to spontaneously break into song, except in Thronebreaker they break into a collectible card game instead.
It’s a simpler version of Gwent than you might remember from previous games, streamlined by years of tweaking. Each player plays their cards, representing troops and war machinery, into two rows (rather than the original’s three). Each card has a strength value and a special ability. This can be an attack, but it’s just as likely to boost strength, shuffle units from one row to another, or summon another card from the deck. You win by having the most strength on the board at the end of a round, rather than eliminating your enemy. A full game is played over three rounds, meaning you can let an early loss slip past to boost your chances later. This makes for a more nuanced game than Hearthstone or Magic, but it does mean victories can feel less decisive.
As the backbone of a larger game, though, it’s solid, and an interesting alternative to the combat system of most RPGs. Paired with a story bearing all the hallmarks of its The Witcher heritage, Thronebreaker earns a place within its tangled family tree.