Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales is a card game set in the Witcher universe. The player controls Meve, the queen of Lyria and Rivia, during the second war between the Northern Realms and Nilfgaard. Those events happened in parallel to the book saga and therefore before the video game series.
While traveling through the current location, the player directly controls Meve on the overhead map. The way to the next plot point is fairly linear, but there are often side paths to take which leads to optional combat encounters or resources (recruits, wood or money) to pick up. These are used to craft additional cards or purchase upgrades. The representation of plot and dialogue depends on the importance of the encounter: decisions which only affect resources in the short run are directly displayed over the overhead map, more important ones are narrated text with illustrations and the most important ones feature animated side-view drawings of the characters. Those decisions often have significant impact on the later plot, including which characters join or leave Meve.
The combat system is based on the Gwent mini game featured in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. A standard battle consists of up to three rounds where both opponents plays one of their card in turn. The hit points of all played cards are added up and whoever has the most points after one player passes, wins the round. Two winning points (draws rewards one point to both) wins the battle. At the start of a round, twelve cards are drawn from the card pool; only those can be used during the active round. After a round, the used cards are removed the playfield, the opponents draw additional ones from the pool and the next round begins.
The tactical component comes from the abilities each card possesses. For example, a card may damage enemy cards when deployed, strengthen allies or draw additional cards. While most abilities are automatically triggered after deployment, others have to be manually triggered. Gold units, representing Meve’s companions, have especially powerful abilities. The leaders of the two enemy groups, on player side almost always Meve, are outside of the playfield and also have a manually triggered ability (Meve acquires multiple abilities during the game, but only one can be equipped at a time). Other special card types are trinkets (applies buffs or debuffs to all or some cards when played) and one trophy (this card is always active and can’t be targeted, basically a permanent buff or debuff).
Besides standard battles, many fights have special gimmicks. There may be one-round fights, special requirements to fulfill (e.g. certain cards have to be protected or destroyed) or unique cards. The puzzle encounters, with few exceptions optional, feature a fixed set of cards which have to be used to solve the assignment at hand. This is a singleplayer game, but golden chests found on the overhead map include avatars or cards which can only be used in the multiplayer version Gwent: The Witcher Card Game.
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