The Witcher: Path of Destiny Review - When Theme Is Only Skin Deep

The Witcher: Path of Destiny by Go On Board, the creators of the recent The Witcher: Old World board game, sees players create a story together, with one vying to come out on top as the main protagonist. There have been a couple of The Witcher tie-in tabletop games recently, and we'll see if Path of Destiny incorporates theme, or if it's just a The Witcher name drop.

We previously covered The Witcher: Old World and its expansions, as well as the recent Unmatched sets, featuring characters from The Witcher. You can also read our review of The Witcher 3, and check out our news for the upcoming The Witcher 4.

Choose A Path, Follow The Story

In The Witcher: The Path of Destiny, 1 to 5 players follow narrative story cards, playing cards to gain icons that match those on the story cards, gaining victory and experience points along the way. The players play through 3 chapters of the story cards, with the winner being the one with the most victory points at the end, who becomes the main protagonist of the story.

Each game of Path of Destiny begins with a story deck, of which the core game has 3 different ones, Striga, The Lesser Evil, and The Edge of the World. Each story begins with an intro, and then the path begins. In each chapter, there are 2 different options, displaying 2 of the 4 Path of Destiny symbols. During the 3 turns of each chapter, players draft cards, either by picking 2 from several face-up cards in the play area, or by drawing 2 random cards. They add these to their hand of 5 cards, and choose 2 to play each turn.

Each card has a variety of combinations of effects and symbols. Each card has at least 1 colour banner, and some have one or more of the 4 symbols that you are trying to collect. Others have provisional effects that have requirements for card colours in play, or require you to discard a symbol, in order to gain different symbols. Each turn, players work out their dominant symbol, and a token is placed on the story card with the symbol shared by the most players. After 3 turns, the chapter card with the most tokens is the path the players take, and each player scores a victory point for each one of those symbols they have, and an experience point for the non-dominant chapter symbols they have. The 2 unused symbols for that chapter don't score points.

The dominant story card then dictates which story card to turn to next, and players read the introductory card for that chapter, and play starts again until 3 chapters have been completed, and one of the multiple endings has been reached. This gives some variation across the story for multiple play-throughs, but the turn mechanics and card drafting feel completely removed from the story itself. You're not making choices on which story option to choose, you're simply looking for which icons you have the most of and trying to maximise that. The gameplay also doesn't really feel anything like The Witcher, you're picking cards with The Witcher art on, but other than the story text, this could be any theme, and it would have no effect on the game. But maybe the character choices will have some effect on the theme?

The Depth Of Characters

The Witcher: Path of Destiny core set has 5 character options, Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, Dandelion, and Vesemir. Each character has 4 once-per-game abilities, with 1 available from the start, and the others unlocked as you gain experience points. Each character does feel slightly unique, and the names of the abilities are more thematic than the abilities themselves. Geralt's 'Hmm...', for example, lets the player take a played card back to their hand before the start of the next chapter, giving them more options next turn.

You might not unlock any other abilities, so you might have a single use of an ability across an entire game, and even if you do unlock and use all 4, it still doesn't give you a real feeling of playing Gerlat, or enough difference between any of the other characters to be noticeable. Each character does have 5 unique starting cards, but this doesn't offset it enough, or make them feel particularly unique, or thematic.

When Theme Is Only Skin Deep

The core gameplay of The Witcher: Path of Destiny is very light, there's not a lot of depth to it. You're making choices with the few cards you have, and you might save some for future rounds (you can see which symbols may appear if different paths win), but you're kind of just picking the best cards, trying to work out what others are playing for, and gaining victory points. There's not a lot of strategic depth.

But my main issue with Path of Destiny is its real lack of theme. The theme here feels so thin and the core game mechanics so simple that there's not enough there to actually make it feel like a Witcher game, other than the miniatures and the story text. This could be a game about trains, butterflies, or any major IP, and nothing would change except the art and flavor text.

What Are Our Final Thoughts On The Witcher: Path of Destiny?

I had really high hopes for The Witcher: Path of Destiny. Go On Board did a great job with The Witcher: Old World, which felt like a Witcher game. But Path of Destiny has super light rules and not much strategic depth, which is a problem when it comes in a huge box. But the worst thing is that it feels like they're just using The Witcher brand name. Other than the story, art, and miniatures, there's almost no grasp of The Witcher theme in Path of Destiny. In their promotional material during crowdfunding, they said that it's good for The Witcher fans and fans who like good strategic card games, but I don't think it's good for either.

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The copy of The Witcher: Path of Destiny used to produce this review was provided by Asmodee UK.