Gwent was originally designed as a simple minigame for The Witcher 3, but due to circumstances no one could have predicted it became immensely popular, so much so that CDPR decided to create a standalone game out of it.

While Gwent: The Witcher Card Game is still under heavy development, CDPR announced back at E3 that they would be holding a closed beta in September in order to iron out all of the kinks and hopefully bring Gwent into some sort of a balanced state before the open beta. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, the Gwent team has decided to postpone the closed beta to October 25th in order to add an extra bit of polish before they hand it off to the community. Here's the brief announcement message:

"Dear Gamers,

At E3 we announced that we’d launch the Closed Beta of GWENT: The Witcher Card Game in September. Unfortunately, we feel we need some extra time with the game before we hand it off to you for testing. We know we can make a first impression only once, and want to be sure everything is ready before we blast off. Delivering a good game is more important to us than keeping a deadline. Still, that doesn’t mean we don’t realize that delays can be disappointing, and we apologize for making you wait. Closed Beta will now begin on October 25th. 

Love,

The GWENT Team"

On the positive side, if you plan on visiting Gamescom 2016 in Cologne, Germany, you can be among the first members of the public to get their hands on Gwent. You can find the CDPR booth over at the Entertainment Area (Hall 8, booth B-053) from August 17-21, and while there is most likely going to be a massive queue, the gameplay presentation itself will be free.

Finally, and just in case you haven't seen it, here's the extremely cheesy announcement trailer: