Gwent soon available to play through Beta and at Gamescom

A spinoff from CD Projekt Red's wildly successful conclusion to the Witcher franchise, Gwent is a collectible card game that originally appeared in the game itself. Now it's being flushed out into a standalone product and will first be available for public consumption at Gamescom 2016. In addition to that preview and for those of use who can't make it to Germany in August, sign ups for the open Beta are also going on at the official Gwent website. The open Beta should start sometime in September.

Gwent was a fun diversion within an already incredible game in The Witcher III: Wild Hunt and I am intrigued to see how it evolves to justify breaking it out into its own. I've been missing a card game in my life since I found the Hearthstone playing community too distasteful for my liking, and in many ways find that Gwent introduces a layer of real strategy over RNG luck that many other similar games are lacking in that the game is played with a single deck over three rounds. This allows for some interesting play where even with a weaker draw you can string out your opponent and sacrifice one round to flip the tables in the next.

Gwent will be available for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.