CD Projekt Red has released its final proper update for Gwent: The Witcher Card Game as full development ends and control of the game is handed to the community.
Gwent's October season began October 17 and a blog post on the game's website confirmed the simultaneous release of Update 11.10 would include the final card changes made by CD Projekt Red. "This means that moving forward, you will have control over all the changes made to the cards of Gwent," the developer said.
In an unusual, if not unprecedented, move, CD Projekt Red is putting Gwent's monthly balance changes directly in the hands of the community by letting players vote for which cards deserve an increase in strength and which deserve a decrease.
This will be administered through the Balance Council, a system that lets committed Gwent players vote on changes. Only those who've prestiged at least once (played the game long enough to max out its experience levels and start over, which usually takes several dozen hours) and worked their way up to Pro Rank, or won 25 ranked games that season, can vote.
"Monthly changes to the cards are an important part of the Gwent content cycle; we always tried to ensure that there is something new to consider at the start of each season," CD Projekt Red said in another post.
"We want to — at least to an extent — preserve this part of Gwent. This is why we developed the Balance Council, a feature that ensures changes to cards will still be happening as long as there are people who want them."
CD Projekt Red announced its sunsetting of support for Gwent in December 2022, though assured at the time the game would remain online for years to come. 2023 will be the final year of new cards and official esports support, however.
A small number of developers will keep Gwent running from this point onwards, and while some team members were transferred to other projects, CD Projekt Red is in the process of laying off around 30 employees by the end of 2023 as development winds down.
These job losses announced in May 2023 followed two other waves of lay-offs. The Molasses Flood, which is owned by CD Projekt Red and currently developing the troubled Project Sirius Witcher game, saw 29 team members laid off also in May.
CD Projekt Red also announced the closure of The Witcher: Monster Slayer in December last year, revealing that lay-offs would be made at developer Spokko as a result. Soon after in July, the studio announced plans to lay off 9% of its workforce.
This led to CD Projekt Red developers Paweł Myszka and Lev Ki founding the Polish Gamedev Workers Union in October 2023. "This event created a tremendous amount of stress and insecurity, affecting our mental health and leading to the creation of this union in response," it said.
Gwent celebrated its five year anniversary of entering open beta in May 2022, but was first released in closed beta back in October 2016. Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales was released as a full RPG spin-off in 2018 and a single-player standalone expansion called Gwent: Rogue Mage was released in 2022.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
