The Witcher 3 Hearts of Stone Expansion

The gameplay within the Hearts of Stone expansion does not differ much if at all from the Witcher 3, though there of course are a few additions included such as a new crafting set, the School of the Viper, available during the main story line provided you find or buy all of the schematics.  In additional, Gwent sees some additional opponents you can play, as well as cards, so if you had all the them prior to the expansion you will have to spend some time hunting down these new ones, since like Pokemon, gotta have em all.

A new crafting/crafter has been introduced, involving enchanting runewords into your weapons and/or armour (namely the chest piece). Do not fret about trying to find them, there is a quest in the beginning of the expansion that will point you in towards this new crafter, requiring you to do several quests in order to unlock higher or better tier runewords enchantments. Be warned. it also costs a lot of crowns to fully upgrade to the highest tier of runewords, tier 3. We believe we spent about 20 000 crowns in this endeavor, but we had nearly 40 000 crowns so that was not a big deal to us, if you have significantly less and want to be able to afford other purchases, we’d advise you save up or start selling more enemy loot. One of our favourite runeword is called Preservation, which makes the Armourer’s Table armour enhancement and the Grindstone weapon enhancement bonuses never expire compared to the 15 minute timer they normally have. The only time this runeword enchantment stops working is if you do not have the weapon equipment with it. This means periodically during the main storyline where Geralt is forced to use a different weapon or none at all, this bonus will disappear and you will have to get it again afterwards. Not a big deal, just a small point worth mentioning.

There were also several minor tweaks and improvements from when we last played the game and reviewed it ending on patch 1.06 compared to the new patch 1.10 (Hearts of Stone) that we consider it part of patch 1.10  as many people may not have played the game since our review of the Witcher 3, like ourselves. The inventory system has been improved, throwing all books, scrolls, and scraps of paper into its own category called Books. Quest books or maps will stay in the Quest items tab, so you do not have to worry about trying to sift through Books to find them. Additionally there are two more consumable slots added, allowing you to have 4 different items available for quick use instead of being limited to only two and going through the inventory to cycle through say your 3-4 potions you like to use at the beginning or middle of a battle. They also added several ways to sort items in your inventory; Price, Weight, Durability, and Rarity. We enjoyed that we are no longer limited, it is nice to know when you are close to being overweight what items can you ditch to free up the most weight space. Stashes have been re-introduced to the game. We say re-introduced as many remember having a stash in the Witcher 2 which was rather convenient to keep extra items, including equipment and crafting materials as to leave Geralt with more space to pick up more loot as most the time when we’re out exploring, we’re not thinking about crafting a new pair of pants or a sword.