Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales tells the story of Queen Meve of Rivia as she faces many challenges to her rule. She faces treachery from some of her closest, most trusted advisors, a Nilfgaardian invasion, and all the difficulties of trying to regain her rightful place. This story plays out with a combination of point and click adventuring, Gwent battles, and puzzles. Throughout that story are many, many choices that could potentially have a serious impact on the outcome...or on the characters themselves.
My first playthrough consisted of completing the main storyline, side battles, and puzzles. One of the more interesting and challenging aspects of Thronebreaker is the fact that you can choose to skip out on many side battles. In fact, there are definitely times when skipping side battles could be beneficial--you don't always end up with a positive outcome; even after winning the game of Gwent. One of the dangers of skipping the side battles is that you could possibly miss out on unlocking new cards to supplement your deck. Mostly, I fought the majority of them. The final clock for my playthrough was 59 total hours.
Pros:
+ Familiar, but still unique. If you played Gwent in The Witcher 3, you will immediately understand how the games/battles work. In reality, it's much, much more like the online multiplayer card game Gwent--each card/card type has its own unique ability and learning those abilities and how best to counter/utilize them is much of the challenge. It takes a bit of getting used to (for non-Gwent players), but manages to be both fun and challenging.
Players of The Witcher series will recognize the names, settings, enemies, and characters from the RPG or from the short stories. There's some comfort in the familiarity, but again, it feels fresh.
+ Gorgeous artwork. I've always loved the look of the artist designed cards in Gwent and that same artistic flair is obvious throughout the game. The cards themselves are fabulous--some have static art, while those for special abilities or characters are animated. The art also puts a new twist on some of the enemies and characters that are already known.
Much of the story is told through still drawings accompanied by voiceover by a narrator. The drawings are also very, very cool and give the story the perfect punctuation. I also really liked the maps for each zone--each one had a very medieval feel and illustrations that were pertinent to the story in that specific zone.
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| Choices, choices. |
+ In typical The Witcher style, there are many choices to be made. These choices are never easy and are generally a lesser of two evils kind of situation. The choices you make can also have a very serious impact on the story/your deck. If you choose a path that a character doesn't agree with, they might suddenly leave your party--this means you lose access to a powerful gold card with its valuable ability. More story-based choices could see losses of valuable resources needed to build up your camp or deck. I loved the fact that every choice felt impactful and that eventually you get to see how your choices play out.
There are also choices to be made while exploring the map--lesser decisions are scattered around each area and they can impact your troop morale. Keeping morale high is vital as it directly impacts the power of your units--low morale means that your troops face each battle at lower power.
+ Strategizing/deck building. There are numerous enemies with differing abilities--various monsters, Nilfgaardians, Scoia'tel...a regular Witcher mish-mash. Picking cards and strategies to best counter each type is a learning process. There is much flexibility in planning out your deck and through utilizing resources you can expand the total number of cards you can have. Part of the fun is figuring out the best way use cards in combination.
+ Easter eggs. I generally think of The Witcher as a fairly serious series, but there are numerous humorous tidbits scattered throughout the game. Many of these are tied to other games--there is the powerful relic known as "the stick of truth;" there's the suspicious dwarven inn called "Stone Hearth" where you play a Gwent version of Hearthstone (it will make your brain hurt--but it's silly and fun); and then there's the village of Ravenholm...we don't go there anymore. I appreciated these goofy moments in an otherwise serious game.
+ Features characters from The Witcher series. This doesn't necessarily mean that they play a big role, but I liked seeing them and getting insight into their back story. One of the notable characters is Black Rayla, who players will remember from the original The Witcher game.
+ Meve. Lately I've really felt positively about the female characters in video games and Meve definitely continues this trend. She also has an awesome braid (braids are cool--I mean, Kassandra from Assassin's Creed: Odyssey and Black Rayla also sports a saucy braid-hawk thing--BRAIDS ARE THE NEW BLACK!). I liked the fact that Meve felt regal and strong, as a queen should, but she also had very human moments that were relatable and added to her personality. Scars are also cool and Meve earned a particularly nasty one. She's strong, she's tough, but she can be merciful and understanding.
+ Puzzles! They are presented as special scenarios with specific cards and outcomes for victory. Puzzles vary in complexity and rely on knowledge of cards and how to utilize them in each scenario. Their difficulty ranges from silly match-3 games to more complex combinations and strategies. They are also completely optional (but you will definitely miss out on resources and possibly cards by skipping them). *I would like to publicly admit here that I had to look up solutions for several of them (the ghoul/alghoul puzzle, the corpse puzzle, and the Beast puzzle).
+Replayability. The decision-based nature of the story means that there is much replayability. I made some extremely dumb decisions and absolutely would like to go back and change them. There are also multiple difficulty levels.
+ Story. Thronebreaker has a great choice driven story. The story takes Meve to several different areas and each presents its own challenges. The choices you make along them way influence the ending you can get. There are some big twists along the way (one especially that I didn't see coming).
+Great voice acting. There are many familiar voices from The Witcher, but all the characters are acted extremely well. Meve is fabulous.
Cons:
- Performance. Throughout the game I ran into weirdly hitchy performance--laggy bursts while exploring the map and especially while messing around with deck building in camp. I was puzzled because there's not a lot of uber-graphics (I can understand the card animations possibly being taxing) when you're just out wandering on the map. It never officially crashed, but it was really obnoxious, and particularly bad toward the end of the campaign.
- Probably not challenging enough for uber-Gwenters. (*It seems as though a patch in December adjusted the difficulty--there were many complaints prior to this that the battles were way too easy) If you're just in it for the Gwent and not the story, it would be best to just save yourself the time and invest in card barrels for Gwent.
-+ No manual saves. (Honestly, this could be a pro or a con depending on how you feel about this particular issue. I liked that it gave your decisions finality--you couldn't just reload to make a better choice)
-Lingering bugs. In the same patch that adjusted the difficulty level, they also fixed quite a few bugs (it was quite buggy at release) but there are some that persist. I ran into one that will mess up your battle/puzzle if you look at your deck--your cards go blank and do a bunch of weird things requiring you to reload and retry. There wasn't anything devastating or gamebreaking, but again, minor annoyances.
I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Thronebreaker--the blend of Gwent and story-based elements works well and I think anyone who likes a good story will enjoy playing. Having read the short stories, I enjoyed the way that Thronebreaker fleshed out the story of Queen Meve and the Battle of the Bridge. It's nice to see the universe of The Witcher expanded and I really hope that the Tales become multiple stories.
TL:DR
Recommended for:
--Fans of strong storytelling filled with impactful choices
--Fans of The Witcher universe who want a new experience filled with new and familiar characters
--Gamers who enjoy strategy and puzzles
Not Recommended for:
--Uber-Gwent players. The difficulty has been adjusted, but it's probably too easy for you.
--People hoping for lots of Geralt. He plays a very minor role in the story, but he's not a main character.
--People hoping for an RPG.
--People who hate puzzles.
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