The Witcher's fave card game, Gwent, is now in open beta

Drizzle-soaked Welsh county and card game of tavern scoundrels, Gwent [official site], is now in open beta. Originally an in-game pastime from The Witcher 3, developers CD Projekt RED are casting it out into the world to see if it can survive on its own with naught but a pair of free-to-play clogs. It involves pitting your fightcards against the enemy’s fightcards on a wooden battlefield and borrows at least some ideas from the card game of sublime Italian cowardice Condottiere. But if you're unfamiliar, we have a trailer below which explains it much better.

You’ll need the GOG Galaxy client to install it if you’re aching for some of those bluffy mind games. I haven’t Witchered very much but I do enjoy flinging ethereal cards at people I can’t see, so I’m probably going to take a punt at it. Last autumn we also sent Martin Gaston into the Gwent tavern to see how it was shaping up. Here’s a bit of what he said about it:

"One of Gwent's most devilishly maddening decisions is that you can either play a card every turn or pass, but doing the latter forces you to sit out the rest of the round and allows your opponent to play whatever they want uncontested. You will lose rounds through callous arrogance, smugly throwing in the towel and then watching everything turn upside down."

I love it when things go upside down. We’re not sure when Gwent: The Witcher Card Game (to give it the full proper name) is due to properly launch, but it’s out in the wild now, so you may as well get your grubby peasant hands on it.