CD Projekt Red, makers of the highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077 and the well-loved Witcher franchise, have announced a surprising end-of-life for the series spin-off title, GWENT. The news was posted on December 4th that the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of GWENT: The Witcher Card Game would become unplayable on June 9th, 2020.
Leading up to that date, players will have a six month window starting on December 9th in which to transfer most of their console progress over to a GOG.com account which serves as the backend for the PC and mobile versions of the game. The official post has more details on what progress will and won’t be copied over, and promises that more details about the process will be revealed on December 9th.
So, why is this being announced just one year after the game’s console release? The team promised to keep parity between all versions of the game but with five titles to maintain, the underperforming platforms are being cut loose. The announcement explains:
When we launched the console versions of GWENT back in 2017, our intention was to provide console players with the same level of support as their PC counterparts. However, having just launched GWENT on iOS, and with the Android version coming, the number of supported platforms would significantly increase. Looking to the future, we do not believe we can support a growing number of different versions of GWENT while improving feature parity between them.
Considering that PC and mobile are the most popular platforms among GWENT players, we have made a tough decision: to discontinue support of console versions of the game. All GWENT players on consoles will be offered an option to copy their account progress and purchases from their current platform to a GOG account, which is used by both PC and mobile versions of the game.
I’ll add the dates to the Watch List calendar and keep an eye out for more details between December 9th and the game’s end-of-the-road next June. Thanks to Michael Hunin and everyone else who pointed us toward this news.