5. Gwent: Big City Players
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ578p73Jz8 Location: Novigrad (Follow the Count Reuven's Treasure quest line until it appears) Have you played Heartstone? Magic: The Gathering? Scrolls? Perhaps Final Fantasy VIII's Triple Triad? You're missing out if that was a no - or worse yet, it just made you pull a confused face. There's a certain subset of uber nerd that did backflips when they realised the card game built for Witcher 3 is essentially a long-running collect 'em all-style mini-game, the long-term goal being to cultivate a deck across the game and use it to battle everyone from merchants to main characters. Many players passed this off as an unnecessary time-waster - particularly as CD Projekt try to tell you the rules right at the beginning when you're dying to get on with some monster-slaying - but as is Witcher's prerogative to subvert every expectation possible, this particular mini-game is well worth your time. You can take on almost anyone at a game of Gwent (the Bloody Baron in particular being a formidable foe who you'll need to best to unlock a string of challenges in Velen) but it's the tournament in Novigrad that has the most spectacle and tension, a place where you can really see if you've got it what it takes to be the best (there ever was).