"you've chosen one evil in favor of another"

User Rating: 8 | Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales PC

If you take a "Choose Your Own Adventure" novel (reminiscent of those by Ian Livingstone and/or Steve Jackson), give it fully voiced narration and characters, have the dice combat replaced by The Witcher 3's Gwent, and add in overhead exploration, you more or less have Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales. Cutscenes are usually text (fully voiced) or comic book style, with only static images or very basic animation. You won't need a powerful rig for this one.

The story focuses on Queen Meve who, after being betrayed and her lands usurped by the ruthless Nilfgaardians, seeks to rebuild her army and take back the crown. Those hoping to continue the adventures of Geralt and his friends will be disappointed to find that he (and with only Dandelion) appears only briefly in a single battle.

The Gwent has been tweaked from that found in The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, I suspect (having not tried it) bringing it more in line with the standalone online Gwent game released by CD Projekt Red this year; regardless those familiar with the game will surely adapt quickly. As in The Witcher 3's Gwent, improving ("levelling up") your card deck is essential to progress, and this is achieved by gathering resources/winning battles on the Exploration Map where coin/wood can be used to upgrade your camp (which can be used to edit your deck). Clever optional "Puzzle Battles" have also been added, in which you are forced to use a custom deck and have to figure out how to achieve the goals of the combat which, unlike the "standard battles", is often far from just having a higher number than the opponent.

It would be remiss to not discuss"Upper Keep", the third to last battle and what effectively acts as a "final boss" fight, which was not representative of the previous battles. I found it ridiculously hard and frustrating, requiring more luck (i.e. a favourable card draw for you and an unfavourable one for the opponent) than the skills you've been honing throughout the rest of the campaign. Sure you can tweak (which is dare I say essential) your deck to more effective for this "battle", but jebus.

Anyway, if Gwent is your thing, love The Witcher series, and/or enjoy a strong story with solid writing and characters, this is well worth checking out and represents excellent value given the price for the 30 odd hours it takes to complete.