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Massive Expansion, Hearthstone Interviews with Joseph Killian, Liv Breeden, and Chadd Nervig

Hearthstone is a card game game made by Blizzard Entertainment that really exists with a growing community base. This is of course thanks to the consistent support provided by Blizzard to maintain its game ecosystem and attract the attention of players at all times, while at the same time expanding it into a more perfect game. Speaking of expansion, Hearthstone happens to be getting its newest expansion content.

Titled Forged in the Barrens, the expansion that was announced at the BlizzConline 2021 event yesterday brings a lot of interesting content, including a collection of hundreds of new cards and the keyword Frenzy added to the game. For more in-depth details on this expansion, we’ve rounded up exclusive interviews with Game Designers – Joseph Killian and Liv Breeden and Senior Game Designer – Chadd Nervig. You can see the full summary below.

Game Designer – Joseph Killian (left) and Liv Breeden (center) and Senior Game Designer – Chadd Nervig (right)

Overview of Expansion Forged in the Barrens

As we mentioned above, Forged in the Barrens is the latest major expansion for Hearthstone. This year’s new content is focused on bringing players into the “classic Warcraft” sensation where they feel like newbies who then get a lot of new experiences. The development team felt that Barrens was a suitable setting as a starting point for the game because it is a very iconic place for the Horde. As it includes a Horde-focused expansion, some of the new cards will feature characters such as the troll hunter Vol’jin.

This does not include their plans to bring in 10 new characters with their own storylines, and how their destinies intersect with one another. Any Hearthstone fan seems to be pampered again with a supply of new content that should be anticipated.

Classic Content and Gameplay Mechanism Changes

Some of the cards announced with this expansion turned out to be updated versions of older cards, such as Deathwing, Malygos and Ysera. Others also include Wild cards such as Annoy-o-Tron or Menagerie Warden. Not to mention including some cards which are remanufactured versions of other characters. Fans will obviously be presented with a more diverse variety of cards and add to the excitement of playing.

One of the changes that the development team always considers is also related to the Malygos card. Because previously this card was available in Basic and Classic sets, players will use it more often. Every time there is a new expansion, the developer also tries to adjust its interaction with Malygos. In order to be able to add more variations to new cards without having to worry about scenarios that must always be adapted to the presence of Malygos, these cards have now been moved to Wild.

The return of the classic gameplay format is also something that is highly anticipated by old players, and the developers understand this desire very well. By restoring the classic format and remaking the old card set, gamers who haven’t had the chance to play Hearthstone in 2014 will experience a fresher playing experience through this new format.

Another major change that will be brought to Hearthstone is the Spell School enhancement, where magic variations are now adjusted in Arcane, Fire, Frost, Holy, Nature, Shadow, and Fel. The development team says that this change can add more options when using magic and create new reactions, this is also adjusted according to the character class and which magic effects they are compatible with. For example, Shaman characters like Bru’kan who have Nature Spell Damage +3 magic and Spirit Healer which gives +2 Health effect to minions when using Holy-type magic. Since Shamans were a class that had access to Nature’s magic, the added damage effect was perfect for them.

We also mentioned that the Forged in the Barrens expansion brings a new keyword, namely Frenzy. The keyword this time is adjusted to the Horde theme where when you defend and get attacked, there will be a reciprocal effect that is also given. Some fans may feel that adding keywords like this will make the game mechanics more complicated, but the development team always ensures that this scenario won’t happen, because they also always bring new card sets rotation.

They also explain how there is a lot to learn from Scholomance with Spellburst. So Spellbursts are one-time triggerable effects like Frenzy, where they can have an even bigger effect. This one-time triggerable effect will become a new focus that is likely to appear more often in the future, as the development team feels that players can bring up more cool and bombastic effects during the course of the game.

Mercenaries and Other Game Modes

Mercenaries is the newest game mode that will be coming to Hearthstone. This mode is still under development and has reached the stage where new characters are starting to be added. There are some of the best character choices that they immediately consider such as Sylvanas and King Rush, but there are also many other iconic characters from the Warcraft and Hearthstone series. The 10 new characters that will be added to Hearthstone throughout this year have also been confirmed to appear in Mercenaries, with additional story content that players can access in that mode.

Details regarding the Mercenaries mode are still very minimal and the developer unfortunately can’t share much information at this time. But from the few details we got, Mercenaries is a mode that offers completely different gameplay elements and is no longer based on the standard card game that players usually encounter in Constructed, Arena, Duels, and also Battlegrounds. The new characters in this mode are still based on the original Warcraft and Hearthstone games, so it’s possible that characters like Sylvanas will also appear in other game modes.

In addition to Mercenaries, fans’ attention is also focused on the new changes that are prepared for the Duels and Battlegrounds modes. Duels itself is a mode that was developed on a smaller scale and aims to offer a sensation of playing that is easy for players to absorb quickly. The reception he’s received so far has been quite positive, and it’s the development team’s job, of course, to keep improving the quality.

While Battlegrounds is a new mode that was developed separately like Mercenaries. Because it is still in the Beta stage, there are many new changes that still need to be adjusted to make the mode more exciting for players to play. The addition of various modes in a short time does have its own risks such as breaking the community base, but on the other hand it also provides more fun options to play the game. This includes how players who were previously not interested in the concept of Hearthstone’s standard Deck Building gameplay can play the game via Battlegrounds or Mercenaries mode.

Future Plans

Regarding the plans prepared in the future, the developer always brings new adjustments and balancing to the game. This must be done consistently, because there are a lot of nerfs and other changes given to the card, especially when something is moved from Standard to Wild types and so on. Not to mention that they also plan to bring more portraits of old heroes to the in-game shop, although unfortunately there is no specific certainty about when these additions will be made.

Support for new expansions will also continue to roll from time to time, and it is possible that we will see new, more interesting game modes in the future besides Battlegrounds and Mecenaries.

Closing

Well, that’s the summary of Hearthstone’s interview session with Game Designers – Joseph Killian and Liv Breeden and Senior Game Designer – Chadd Nervig. This session gives us a variety of interesting information from the latest expansion Forged in the Barrens, focusing on the classic gameplay format, to adjustments to the new game mode.

For those of you who are interested in the game, Hearthstone is available and can be directly played on PC, Mac, and mobile (Android and iOS). You can visit the official website HERE to get the latest information about the game.

Be sure to stay up to date with other mobile game news on Gamerwk.

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