The rediscovery and classification of the Balkans has been the subject of literary fiction and philosophical writing since the late 18th century. Though the Balkan states, and their myriad cultural groups, had occupied that geographic locale since the 5th century BCE. The theoretical body of work produced by the global West and its perception of the Balkans then was, and is, mired in stereotypes drawn from sociopolitical events of the 18th century and beyond, rather than the complex history of those peoples. In fact, the reality of the Balkans and how those peoples conceived of themselves is diametrically opposed to the body of work produced by Western scholars and artists. That Western body of work is referred to as Balkanism, a term coined by Maria Todorova in Imagining the Balkans (1997). This concept is a local application and modulation of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978). In this, the Western games industry has conformed to accepted standards of discussing the Balkans explained in Balkanism. What I argue is that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and its spin-off card game, Gwent, reimagine a Europe beyond Balkanism, which subverts, and critiques stereotypes attached to Balkan countries. I discuss the theoretical body of work focused on cultural theory and game studies to explore the intersection between these two fields. This theory is then applied to analyze Gwent as an introduction to the more complex world of the Witcher 3, and how both games read together posit a different conception of the Balkans.