Ever since the release ofThe Witcher 3: Wild Huntback in 2015,Gwent: The Witcher Card Gamehas taken the world by storm. Starting its life as a smallWitcher 3minigame, the card game proved to be especially captivating and entirely addictive, so much so it spawned its own multiplayer spin off in 2018.
Taking inspiration from games likeHearthstone,Gwent: The Witcher Card Gameuses the base elements of Gwent as it appeared inThe Witcher 3and offers players the chance to build specialized decks for use in online tabletop battles. With an all-new, single-player Gwent game in production, codenamedProject Golden Nekker, Gwent fans will be excited to get their hands on newWitchercontent, though may be disappointed to learn that not every platform will support it.
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As announced byGwentcommunity lead Paweł Burza,Project Golden Nekkerwill launch later this yearon PC, iOS, and Android. However, speaking on the April 15 “This Week in Gwent” stream, game director Vladimir Tortsov revealed that the developers currently have no plans to bring the game to consoles.
This isn’t the first time that console players have been left in the dust when it comes to CD Projekt Red games as, after failed releases, a few games have seen themselves removed from console stores. Just last year,Cyberpunk 2077was shelved on the PlayStation Storefollowing its bug-ridden launch which called for mass refunds. Moreover, back in 2019, support for theGwent: The Witcher Card Gamewas dropped on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One to save developer time as the game was being made available on Android and iOS.
Regarding the subject, Tortsov elaborates that “we left them [consoles] for a reason,” stating that “for live service games with frequent updates it was a really tough experience.” Console development can be notoriously hard work, and often console players are left out when it comes to cross-platform games. Updates, new content, andbeta testing almost inevitably appear on PC before consolesas developers work to clean up performance on the machines.
When speaking about upcoming games likeProject Golden Nekker, Tortsov says “Overall, […] we’re not planning to bring any of our spin-offs to consoles at this point.” It appears thatCD Projekt Red doesn’t want to repeatCyberpunkandGwent’s mistakes withProject Golden Nekker, and by avoiding console development altogether they allow themselves time to create new card drops and content, keeping the game as relevant as Gwent continues to be.
Gwent: The Witcher Card Gameisavailable for Android, iOS, and PC.Project Golden Nekkeris expected to release later this year for Android, iOS, and PC.
