CD Project Red just launched Gwent: Rogue Mage, a standalone expansion to The Witcher card game focused on PvE and with a Roguelike approach.
The game combines the mechanics of Gwent (the cardgame released as a standalone title in 2017) with the original experience available in game within The Witcher 3 which, even today, has thousands of fans who simply log in to play the cardgame. The Rogue Mage map is procedurally generated and you can collect dozens of cards as you tackle the journey of Alzur (the creator of the first Witcher) again and again by challenging your opponents in Gwent battles.
How Rogue Mage was born and to whom it is addressed
“Rogue Mage was suggested to us by the fact that so many years after the release of The Witcher 3 there is still a significant number of players who would like a more PvE-oriented Gwent experience ,” explains game director Vladimir Tortsov. . “While Gwent is great for those who enjoy a multiplayer PvP experience, we fully understand why many Witchers prefer the original mini-game, for so many different reasons. With Rogue Mage we want to give this group of players a reason to take on modern Gwent in the format they prefer ”. Unfortunately for fans of The Witcher universe lore, Rogue Mageis a game that focuses mainly on gameplay with (relatively) little narrative cues. “We want to tell the story of Alzur’s obsession with creating the first Witcher but we don’t treat this expansion as an official chapter of The Witcher series in terms of lore,” said Tortsov. “Our goal with the Rogue Mage story is to provide players with enough context to find out who Alzur is, what his motives are, and the general situation of the world in which he lives. We hope players are engaged enough to appreciate the gameplay formula even more, but we don’t expect history to be the main reason to be passionate about this expansion. “
How to play Gwent Rogue Mage?
Your favorite characters born from the pen of Andrzej Sapkowski such as Dandelion, Zoltan and Yennefer, will be there but the gameplay setting will be much more similar to that of the contemporary Gwent rather than that of the internal game of The Witcher. The game mechanics will therefore be slightly more complex but a great job has been done at the card-design level so the first impact is much milder than the first login of the PvP game. The 4 starting decks are made up of 12 cards, and each deck serves to teach us a basic mechanic such as power up. During the game, new cards are unlocked but strictly one at a time. The goal is to make the experience as smooth as possiblewithout overloading new players with terminology and mechanics. Torstov said that the game, for collectors, lasts almost 30 hours but being a roguelike (you only have one life to go from start to finish so if you lose you will have to start over) there can be runs even for less than 10 minutes. The mix of cardgame and rogulike really amazed me and I can only recommend this experience to fans of the series. There is little narrative but just know that Rogue Mage is set hundreds of years before the birth of Geralt and is centered on the creation of the very first Witcher.
Is Rogue Mage really worth 10 euros?
Yes, because there are no micro transactions and the game is completely playable offline . CD Projekt Red has completely revolutionized the title since 2019, when it was announced expanding it in size to become a standalone experience worthy of a relatively high price for the mobile universe . “Instead of dividing the campaign into several parts and using microtransactionsto make players progress between the different chapters, we decided to make it a complete title, available for purchase separately, ”said Tortsov. If you want the rankings or the chat with your friends you will have to stay connected but apart from these marginal features the game is completely playable offline, finally. Waiting for the new chapter of the saga, out in several months (if not years), Rogue Mage is the best way to pass the time in the universe of The Witcher while having fun with a well-made and firmly run-in cardgame. This new Gwent expansion is available for PC, Android and iOS .
