Gwent Shutting Down on Consoles
Photo Credit: CD Projekt RED
When you look at the success of Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh and the Pokemon Trading Card Game it’s a wonder it took Hearthstone before the great boom of the online trading card games. When you really think about it it’s a no brainer, you reap all the same awards but pay way less in material costs. Regardless, Blizzard beat everyone to the punch and since the amazing success of Hearthstone countless online trading card games have been born.
Most popular among them are Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering but some Indie entries are also notable such as Slay the Spire or Duelyst. One game out there though based on a popular IP doesn’t seem to be doing so well, at least on consoles. CD Projekt Red the creators of the Witcher trilogy and developers of the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 have announced they will be dropping support for Gwent on consoles. Gwent was a card game developed and played in the Witcher and a few years ago launched it’s own version of the card game. It even saw a bit of league play in a few instances. It seems that the game is popular enough on PC and iOS devices as most online trading card games are.
Announced on their website the announcement stated this about the console version of game, “When we launched the console versions of GWENT back in 2017, our intention was to provide console players with the same level of support as their PC counterparts. However, having just launched GWENT on iOS, and with the Android version coming, the number of supported platforms would significantly increase. Looking to the future, we do not believe we can support a growing number of different versions of GWENT while improving feature parity between them.“
Our Thoughts: I have a complicated history with card games, especially online ones. I bought into Hearthstone when it was new and exciting and got a similar thrill from when I played Magic: The Gathering in high school. But it was missing something crucial to the experience and that was the face-to-face factor. That personal touch of being across the table from a real person, a best friend took some of the soul out of the game for me. On top of that, it was increasingly difficult to keep up with the way they released expansion packs. It took a way too large of a toll on my wallet to even feel as though I was competitive. For fans of Gwent who actually played on consoles, I feel for you if this was your game. At least you’ll still have access on PC and mobile so it’s not as if it’s going away completely. The online trading card market has tons of great options to choose from and in order to stay competitive with one another some will live and some will die as they try to find the right formula.