Blizzard Reveals Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

During a panel at the Penny Arcade Expo, Blizzard Entertainment announced Heartstone: Heroes of Warcraft. It's the next game the company will release, and it's a free-to-play collectible card game "focused primarily on one-on-one." It boasts 300+ cards, with five cards coming in each pack you earn or purchase, and uses Battle.net matchmaking.

You can register for the beta now.

Card crafting allows players to consolidate duplicate cards of various types. This feeds into the deck-building system, which is as automatic or micro-management heavy as you desire. You'll build your deck around your class, such as a rogue, both in terms of the kinds of skills and buffs you bring into battle, and the class-specific cards you're able to use. A medal ranking system categorizes duelists by skill, similar to Starcraft II. Hearthstone is coming to PC and Mac in addition to iPad, which will release later, though feature and networking parity remains to be seen. The current goal is to release Hearthstone in the same territories World of Warcraft is currently available.

Strategy relies on the balance of health and mana, the use of summons, and killing enemy minions with various cards and hero powers.

The 3D presentation of Hearthstone is very animated, with plenty of icons, animations, and imagery bringing the tabletop game to life. It also appears to move quickly -- Blizzard demonstrated a 1v1 duel with a shoutcaster commentating on the events, strategy, card types, and effects of each card. Blizzard created a new team of 15 developers, and describes them as fast and experimental. It was conceived to cook up different styles of games, smaller scale but in line with the "epic Blizard" style.

Developing...

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