Look at these illustrations for that Gwent card game from The Witcher

You'd think my love of video game illustrations, plus the idea that collectible card games are trading around miniature portraits of fantasy artwork, might coalesce into a thing of perfection for me. Good art! Neat game! But why am I not always interested? Who knows. Sure, I was in the hobby shops when Magic: The Gathering exploded out of the gate in the early 1990s. It never latched onto me, though. I guess there weren't enough 20-sided dice involved in CCGs to keep my attention.

Despite my needless misgivings, I like what's coming out of the CD Projekt RED camp. Gwent: The Witcher Card Game is an in-game playable CCG in The Witcher 3. CD Projekt RED is extracting the Gwent minigame, investing further time and artwork into it, and releasing it as a fully standalone single- and multiplayer game for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

You could see CD Projekt's love of collectible cards from its first release in 2007's The Witcher. That, of course, sent them a bit of negative public relations, since the cards amounted to nothing more than a stack of semi-nude women Geralt of Rivia had sex with. I loved the art. But I had to admit that basically keeping a binder full of women around was distressing. The Witcher 2 and 3 matured their sexual themes in response to the backlash. Yes, you can still sleep with a lot of women in The Witcher series (look out, Commander Shepard), but you're just going to have to rely on your memory—and your own frantic screenshots—to revisit them; you can't tuck a well-used set of sexy baseball cards into Geralt's knapsack anymore.

So, here's some official, cherrypicked Gwent artwork from the upcoming CCG. These are from illustrators, concept artists, and senior artists working hard at CD Projekt RED. There's a whole mess more of them shuffled into the deck at ArtStation for you to browse. In the meantime, I'll be dismantling my misgivings about collectible card games.

Gwent's closed beta started in October 2016 for PC and Xbox One. "Closed beta" is what's nowadays called "early access" (grin). Regardless, you can sign up to get in.