Gwent or how it helped me finish the Witcher 3

Poster: CD Project Red.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. One of the best games ever made (it won more than 250 Game of the Year awards). I finished it three times. And I’m not sure I actually like it. 

The Witcher 3 tells an epic fantasy story, concluding the tale developer CD Project Red started in 2007 (author Andrzej Sapkowski started the novel series the games are based on in 1986 and has so far published 8 novels and short story collections). You travel around a gigantic world map as Geralt of Rivia, a professional monster hunter or “Witcher”, trying to find both your ex-lover Yennefer (it’s complicated) and your de-facto daughter, Ciri (it’s also complicated). You adventure and you hunt monsters and support your daughter in saving the world. Or if you are me, you play cards, rush through the rest of the game until you reach the second story expansion and then have the time of your life owning a vineyard. 

Not this vineyard, but you get the gist. Image: CD Project Red.

Corvo Bianco, the vineyard you get within the first 30 minutes of the expansion, is amazing and looks exactly like the hypothetical vineyard I will buy if I ever win the lottery. 

As this is a video game, something has to spoil the fun. You stumble into a vampire conspiracy that gets very bloody, very quickly. 

The story of Blood & Wine is like the hall of fame of amazing old-fashioned mysteries. You learn that vampires are involved pretty much immediately, but not which faction and it is your job to figure out the situation before too many people get killed. That the mystery is set in a virtual version of the Mediterranean is an added bonus. 

However, there is the rest of the game. 

And it’s a behemoth. Summary time: 

The world of the Continent is caught up in a war between the Nilfgaardian empire (they wear fancy black armor), which has already invaded the Northern Kingdoms and taken most of the land, and Redania (they wear red armour). Countless people are caught between the fronts. Hardship is making people desperate. They turn against each other, against the weak and the different, often making an example of non-humans (elves, dwarves and monsters), sorcerers and anything else that might be perceived as weird or magical or weak (there’s a lot of suffering). 

The witcher Geralt of Rivia, a monster hunter with super-human abilities and distinct, cat-like eyes, sets out to find his long-lost daughter, Ciri, who recently reappeared after jumping through alternate dimensions (she is very special). She’s on the run from the Wild Hunt, spectral ghost-warriors whose main feature is to freeze the grass they are standing on and lay destruction wherever they go. They also want Ciri for their own nefarious purposes. Geralt seeks out his ex-lover Yennefer of Vengerberg for help, and goes on a wild goose chase, reconnecting to old allies, enemies and frenemies (Dijkstra, my favorite duplicitous boy) to find his ward. He is also trying very hard to not get involved in the war, but fails miserably.

This is the Wild Hunt. They look pretty scary until you realize, they’re only in 2% of the game. Image: CD Project Red.

You can tell that the games are based on books with that setup. But then the actual game comes in. 

The wild goose chases includes: an entire small map that teaches you how to witcher, helping a sorceress with her small business, uncovering a domestic abuse case, going on a few smaller goose chases in a very big city that get boring very quickly, a short visit to the local version of vikings (who are the best), more merry goose chases and some parental advice after you find Ciri. 

This is you for large parts of the game. Your horse is called Roach. Image: CD Project Red. 

The game often loses focus of Geralt’s mission of finding his daughter. Many of the main quests are divided into smaller quests that dilute the storytelling focus the game set up in the first few hours. At the beginning, it really feels like you are in a tight race with the Wild Hunt to get to Ciri. You see the extent of the devastation they leave in their wake: frozen villages, traumatized witnesses and utter dread when they start hunting you down as well. And then you help find the peller’s goat. 

The randomness of some of the things you have to do during the main quests is jarring. I assume the developers were trying to build out the world, however, they do not always succeed. Most of the time, it just feels like the game is specifically trying to stretch the time it will take you to finish a quest and move to the next one. Like finding the peller’s goat or running around doing errands for the local mafia in the city of Novigrad. 

This is Novigrad. It’s very pretty and feels like an actual city. Image: CD Project Red.

There is fantastic dialogue buried in the heap of things to do, and some very interesting characters to meet (Dijkstra, my boy; Keira Metz, my queen). The game even includes my favorite side quest of all time, “A Towerful of Mice” in which you use your witcher powers to uncover the mystery of a haunted tower to a devastating conclusion. 

But the filler - I honestly forgot about the Wild Hunt, the MAIN VILLAINS, during parts of the game - and the tonal inconsistency can make it exhausting to play. 

Enter Gwent. 

Gwent is a card game in the Witcher. You can buy and collect cards and play various characters (including some major characters like my boy, Dijkstra) for even more cards. It is a battle between two armies (yours and your opponents) on a battlefield using the card's attributes to gain an upper hand. It is a deceptively simple game with some hidden depths (think Pokémon, if you are familiar). Characters in the game discuss the game. There are various quests about it. You get an entire new faction in Blood & Wine.

Gwent in the Witcher 3 kind of looks like this, just without fancy special effects. Image: GWENT: The Witcher Card game.

Gwent rules. So much there’s even a stand-alone spin-off.

And next to the characters and some excellent side quests, it was enough to keep me going. Endure hours of merry goose chasing. Push through story lulls. Survive the floaty combat. There was always Gwent. 

My Geralt - a gambler with a heart of gold - did not always fit into the world CD Project Red has built. 

But he definitely enjoyed a good game of cards and the vineyard he got in Blood & Wine.