Gwent, The Witcher 3 Card Game That Almost Wasn’t

Nerdist’s Edwin Garcia has got in touch with the developers at CD Projekt RED to talk about Gwent, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s card minigame. The minigame has been surprisingly popular, so much that players are now clamoring for a physical and online edition (something that the developers are considering, though there are problems), but its inclusion in the game was apparently a late addition, and head of the studio Adam Badowski was initially opposed:

First, how did it all come together? You’ll be surprised that like many things in this life, the magic happened in the bathtub. sort of. During the time of development, both Damien and RafaÅ‚ were into card games and wanted to include one in the the final product. It turns out that Adam Badowski, the head of the studio, wasn’t a big fan of starting a side project half way through development, even calling it (insane) and (crazy).

He gave them two days (coincidentally lined up with the weekend) to bring in a prototype of sorts. Like the best of ideas, a nice bath conversation sparked the creative process, RafaÅ‚ says, (Saturday or Sunday Damien was taking a bath, thinking about the game and so we met somewhere in the middle). Other ideas they were mulling over included axe throwing or knife throwing, so I’d say they went with the best choice.

In that same weekend, Damien photoshopped 100’s of cards so that they could have something to show to Adam on Monday. With the prototype ready, they played a game in front of the man who would have the final say, and of course he jumped on board. None of it would have been possible without that bath, though.