Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales Reviews

a lot of battles at the beginning require a specific strategy which took the fun of gwent

I have started this game many years ago, but quit in the first chapter. I would guess that many other players get the same experience after completing Witcher 3: Gwent is not the same, puzzles is dum and overcomplicated at the same time. So you will quit at the first chapter or bear this pain and complete a full game with a lot of pleasure. Graphics is very simplistic, but very detailed. Animated card images and battlefield board is stunning. Story is very deep and covers a lot of new characters (for people familiar with Witcher universe only from games) plus you will get some known personas. After ~10 hours you finally starting to grasp how mechanics are working. And it is such a joy to play your hand knowing that you will beat opponent with detailed step-by-step plan already in mind. After more hours you will start to experiment with deck to get very fancy (or not) results. At the very end it's would became a bit easy, but game known this and start to send you even more twisted plots. If you can play it alone - just try to play together with a friend or family member. It would be a more enjoyable experience for you and a lot of fun and planing for both of you.

Do you like role-playing and good stories (such hard choices with perfectly justified consequences!)? The Witcher setting? Card games/turn-based strategies? Puzzles with never repeating mechanics? Take it. Amazing soundtrack, story and characters. Battles are exciting and the puzzles are very creative and fun. I didn't like the new standalone version of Gwent at first, but I enjoyed playing this game a lot. 100% a must play if you're a fan of the Witcher universe, this game has the CDPR quality you would expect.

Yes!!! I absolutely recommend this game to anyone whose favourites include GWENT or card games in general. Although I haven’t completed it yet, I was so overwhelmed with positive emotions that I felt compelled to leave a review. I’m currently playing on the hardest difficulty, and while the battles are undeniably challenging, they are by no means insurmountable—I’ve managed to win every encounter so far. Please don’t be dissuaded by negative reviews; it’s likely they stem from players who don’t enjoy strategic thinking or careful planning. Despite not having reached the ending, I can already say with confidence that I would be eager to replay the game, perhaps on a lighter difficulty, to fully immerse myself in the narrative. I also strongly recommend using a controller, as it makes navigation far more intuitive—I didn’t have to constantly click to move. Finally, the graphics, storytelling, and voice acting are nothing short of superb. This game is a true gem for anyone who appreciates both tactical gameplay and rich narrative depth.

Great game with an amazing plot, the story is absolutely immersing and no witcher series fan is going to be disappointed with this game - even if you don't care for gwent, the storyline itself makes up for it entirely. Absolutely recommend!

Fun to play, and the fact that it takes part in the Witcher's universe is even better.

Another fantastic entry into The Witcher series. Overall this is a game about storytelling, the moral dilemmas of leadership and a little bit of strategic card game in it. So, first the positives - The voice acting is absolutely top notch, the storytelling is just as good, the combat is engaging and while not particularly profound in terms of card combos it's still quite satisfactory as you have the options to devise multiple strategies. As for the negatives, I've seen criticisms of it being too long, but it's a Witcher game, it kind of comes with the territory so that did not bother me, personally. I would have liked to have some indication of what kind of card I would get from certain puzzles and battles since that would have allowed one to build their strategic deck better. The lack of multiple saves is a bit of a problem. For a game with so many impactful decisions to not be able to reload a previous save is troublesome. I get that this was likely on purpose in order for it all to feel impactful, but I do like to see how other scenarios would have played out, but the sheer length of the game is daunting if I am to replay the entire thing just to change my choices. Overall a great little gem (not even that little), that I recommend, especially to Witcher game fans.

Great story, great characters, beautiful visuals, pretty good music. CD Projekt's other games are still better and you should really only play this if you love the Witcher games/books. The choices you make during your playthrough don't change enough to warrant doing multiple playthroughs but the game is still 30~ hours long, maybe 40. Gwent is Thronebreaker's main gameplay and without it Thronebreaker would essentially be an audiobook, I liked gwent in Witcher 3 yet I despised it in this game, some of the normal battles are ridiculously hard. If you end up playing Thronebreaker then know that you can swap difficulty at any time, the game autosaves before every battle and the lowest difficulty gives you the option to skip any fight you lose.

absolutely phenomenal story and voice acting, this is a great chaser after playing through the witcher 3 for some difficult decisions and incredible writing

I have the majority of my time playing this game through GOG, but still wanted to leave a review here since Steam tends to get more views. Despite being a major fan of this game, you do need to understand that it's still centered around Gwent. It is a more refined version of the game than what's in Witcher 3, but if you hate Gwent then I'd struggle to recommend Thronebreaker. It is feasible to play the game on the easiest difficulty (as I believe it allows you to skip the majority of battles) and just experience the story, but at that point you'd be better off suited just watching the story on YouTube. The thing that I love most about Thronebreaker is the writing and characters. The actual story plots aren't anything incredibly unique, but the quality of the written dialogue is astounding, and the voice acting along with it is terrific. Most of the characters that you meet are very likable, or at least fairly well written, and create some engaging moments throughout the game. I also love the visual style of the game, it has a very artistic/painterly presentation that I think works very well. The soundtrack also deserves some recognition, as it continues in the spirit of Witcher 3's stellar soundtrack while still having its own flair. In terms of game design, the game is largely split up between normal battles and puzzle scenarios. I really enjoyed these puzzle scenarios, as you're given a set of unique cards with a unique goal, but most of them are pretty simple. I would have liked a few that were a bit more challenging. As far as the normal combat goes, those are the typical Gwent matches, and here is one of my biggest hangups of the game. For story reasons, you only use a Northern deck (but you'll get occasional cards from other decks to use if you wish). The Northern cards are fairly fleshed out, as are Nilfgaard, but the other deck types feel pretty underbaked. I know that Thronebreaker was originally only supposed to be a single-player add-on to the standalone Gwent game and ballooned into what it is, so I assume that this is a direct consequence of that. But as I've played through the game multiple times now, it's definitely a bummer that you can only ever use a Northern deck and that so many of the other deck types feel undercooked. If we ever got a potential sequel, I would LOVE to see fully fleshed out versions of each deck type. The game does feature story choices, but these choices largely don't impact the overall plot, and only tend to impact which characters stay in your party (and in turn, if you can use them in combat). There are multiple endings, but that's essentially just "which set of slides plays over the end of the game". The story will run you about 30 hours or so if you're doing a decent amount of exploration, but if you really pressed just the golden path then you could probably get through it in 15-20 hours. TL;DR: Thronebreaker REALLY clicks with me, but I really enjoy Gwent, and I really clicked with the characters. If you hate Gwent, you probably won't have a good time. Also, if you're looking for a game with incredibly deep and meaningful story choices, you'd probably want to look elsewhere. But if you enjoy Gwent and this world, then I recommend it very highly. The other thing that I think Thronebreaker achieves is that it shows us how much is possible for this world. You can still create really engaging experiences in this world with an entirely new cast of characters, and I really hope that CDPR takes some risks like that in the future.