Yesterday I mentioned that I was starting a new game called Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales. A game set aside from the main line of Witcher games and a game that's quite different from them as well. I've delved into it for about four hours now and I've made up some first impressions about the game.
I don't want to repeat myself to much so if you want to read up on what the game is about check out my post from yesterday or the Steam page for the game.
The setting
The game, obviously, takes place in the Witcher universe. For the first part of the game we find ourselves in Lyria, a region that's never been depicted in anything other that writing earlier. We play as Queen Meve who is returning from a leader meeting only to find her lands ravaged by bandits. If that wasn't enough Nilfgaard is invading as well, as they often do. Nilfgaard is invading and warring in both the Witcher 3 and the TV-series. It's their thing. They're quite mean.
The fact that we're playing as Queen Meve immediately tells us that this game is set many years before the setting of the main line Witcher games. If you're a lore nerd like me you may know that it was Queen Meve who knighted Geralt and gave him the title Geralt of Rivia.
We play as Queen Mave, taking her army through the lands of Lyria to save it from certain disaster. We make choices on her behalf which impacts the story in "meaningful ways" as the developers would say. There's no Witchers to be seen yet, but the term "Witcher" has been mentioned. I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually end up meeting one or even Geralt himself. Maybe we even get to knight him?
General gameplay
The gameplay is quite simple. Overland travel has us moving through a scaled down map of the region we're in. We only see Queen Meve but it's supposed to be the entire army walking around. Moving is done by pointing and clicking. It's quite simple but it serves its purpose.
Scattered around the map we find resources that help us strengthen our army. There's wood and gold that lets us build facilities for out army and recruits which help us recruit more units (cards) for combat. Gold can also be spent for better or worse during several scanarios you may find yourself in. Like helping the peasants or donating to the temple. This might or might not net you a decent reward or increase or decrease the morale of your troops.
Combat
Combat is done through card-battling. It's loosely based on a mix of Gwent and Hearthstone I would say. It's much closer to Gwent: The Witcher Card Game than it is to Gwent from The Witcher 3. The concept of having melee, ranged and siege rows is gone. Instead there's only two rows and all cards can go anywhere. The cards has a lot of different abilities which gives a lot of possibilities and a tactical focus.
I'm quite glad they've done this. Gwent in The Witcher 3 is great for what it is but it's also quite simple once you get the hang of it. There's not enough depth to it to warrant making a whole game based on it. The way they've done it in Thronebreaker is much better for what it is. The general premise is the same though. The winner is decided by the best of three rounds and to win a round you need to have the biggest army on the table when the round ends.
There's not much room for customizing your deck early on but I expect that to change as I get further in. There is however a lot of enemy card variety which keeps combat spicy. Even though I'm playing with the same deck every time no two battles feel the same. They all need different tactical approaches to be won.
Puzzles
There's also some pretty cool puzzles. They're based on the same combat system but instead of playing with your own deck you're given a set of pre-selected cards which you need to use to overcome a given scenario. Sometimes there's one and sometimes there's several solutions to the given scenarios.
For instance one puzzle had me fighting a deranged cow surrounded by normal cows. The deranged cow would at the end of any round kill off the normal cow with the lowest health, unless there were several cows with the same amount of health. If that was the case it would only deal one damage to a random cow instead. My task was to kill the deranged cow without letting any of the normal cows die.
With a set number of cards I had to, literally, play my cards right to win. Balancing the health of the normal cows while still damaging the deranged cow enough to kill him before running out of cards. As with most puzzles I managed to beat it after a couple of tries. It's often a matter of trial and error. I'm loving the puzzles.
Choices
There's a lot of choices to be made in this game. There's a score of lesser choices, letting you choose if you want to lend peasants a hand with their shitty lives or if you don't want to pay them any mind. With these you'll know what you gain or loose from it before you make the choice. Like helping a passerby by mending his wagon will cost you some wood but your troops will gain some morale as a reward.
Then there's story related choices which make a greater impact. At one point I came into a town and there was a mob of humans murdering elves and dwarves. I choose to intervene but it was already to late and the humans attacked me. I dealt with them and was given the choice of killing the humans as to revenge the elves and dwarves or if I wanted to whip and publicly humiliate them as a punishment.
I chose the latter. In these kinds of choices you don't know what happens before you make the choice. You'll have to live with the consequences. I choose to punish the humans but not by death. This riled up the non-humans in my army and they ended up deserting, lowering my army strength. I felt it was the right thing to do and it ended up costing me.
Verdict
I'm having fun with this game. I think it's a great addition to the Witcher universe but I can see people getting disappointed if they for some reason discover the Witcher through this game. Gameplay is slow and very simple. It can all be done with your mouse and doesn't require a lot of skill, but rather some brains. What is is, and what it's meant to be, is a supplement to the story. To enrich the lore. I would say this this game is more of a story with gameplay elements instead of the other way around.
It's a very relaxed game for sure. You just sit back, click your mouse and decide which choices to make. It's quite contrary to Outriders which is focused almost entirely on combat and action. It's a nice break for sure. I'll probably be playing both for the time being. Letting Outriders be my outlet for action while I can sit back and relax with Thronebreaker.
Highly recommended if you like relaxed story based games and you're a fan of the Witcher universe.
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me from within the game.
I’ve been looking at this game. I have so many stupid games I am trying to play right now. Even though I am retired, it is still hard to find the time to play them all.
It's quite nice to just sit back and relax with. Even if a day lasted for 48 hours I wouldn't have enough time to do everything I want. It's a constant issue.
I used to play Heartsonte but it became very p2w since that time I felt that this kind of game died for me I enjoyed being able to build a deck from 0.
Difference is this is just an adventure game with a story. Not a multiplayer game. All cards are available to you and can’t be bought in any way. I do agree though. I also refuse to play any cars collecting games that doesn’t utilize NFT.
What a beautiful game ... i really love strategy games and the story of this one i loved in general, especially the part of the puzzles and decks in the game, it looks quite interesting, I hope one day to play it ... i doubt it very much but i will be positive
The game won't ever go away and it'll only get cheaper. I hope you get to try it one day :)
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What a beautiful game ... i really love strategy games and the story of this one i loved in general, especially the part of the puzzles and decks in the game, it looks quite interesting, I hope one day to play it ... i doubt it very much but i will be positive