Summary
Hearthstone’s latest Titans expansion was released earlier this month, introducing 145 cards to its already sizeable collection of thousands of minions, heroes, and spells from the iconic Warcraft universe. This latestHearthstoneexpansion is all about Warcraft’s Titans: colossal planet-sized beings that serve as the caretakers of the universe. Each class has received an array of Titan-themed spells and minions, and new keywords like Forge have added some additional strategic considerations for gameplay and deck building.
Game Rant sat down with Lead Narrative Designer Valerie Chu and Lead Designer Chadd Nervig to discuss all things Titans and the team’s general approach to developingHearthstone. They offered some insights into how they create a fresh set of cards with each expansion while keeping balance in mind and avoiding redundant cards. In addition, they weighed in on how exactly they decide on a given expansion’s theme, as these have ranged from music festival themes to murder mysteries to more lore-focused ones like Titans.
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Hearthstone Makes Around 1000 Cards For An Expansion and Chooses the Best
After thousands of cards have been added to the game, it would be reasonable to assume thatHearthstone’s developerswould begin to have a tough time coming up with new ideas that aren’t repeats of past card sets or that would be disruptive to game balance. However, according to Nervig, theHearthstoneteam has no shortage of ideas. In fact, Blizzard’s process involves coming up with many times more Hearthstone cards than they ever plan to release for each expansion.
We ship 145 cards, but in the process, we probably made almost 1000 in some cases, and it’s just a matter of, “Okay, what are the best 145 of this? How do we concentrate that down to the most distinctive, the most emotive, the most exciting ones there, and what are the card ideas that we save for a future expansion to seed our ideas for the next expansion’s gameplay or lore?”
I don’t think we’re in any danger of running out of ideas. It’s always a challenge of “What ideas for this expansion fit well and are going to be the most exciting to put all of our efforts behind to bring to the players?”
This is great news for fans who may have been worried thatHearthstonecould run out of steam in the near future, and with thousands of unused card ideas in their pocket, Blizzard will no doubt have plenty of content in store for futureHearthstoneexpansions. This approach ensures that each expansion’s new cards are the ones most suited to the desired theme and the competitive climate.
Hearthstone’s Expansion Theme Choices Try to Keep Players Guessing
Each expansion’s theme provides some context for the various mechanics, spells, and creatures that will be introduced in its card set, andHearthstone’s approach to expansions is to keep things fresh by taking the game in different directions each time. Rather than simply basing themes off ofWorld of Warcraft’s current expansionsin a chronological fashion, each expansion is deliberately chosen to contrast with what players have recently been experiencing.
One of the things that is important to us overall, though, is not doing the same thing back to back so that Hearthstone players will always be getting something new, a good amount of variety. Unless we’re doing something like a year-long narrative, I think that would be the exception, but trying to take people to new places and give them a new experience so it doesn’t get too stale.
Our process for deciding what new expansions we do is a team-wide involved discussion. We have big brainstorming sessions for the whole team to throw out ideas for what new expansion themes should we do next, And Titans or Ulduar have basically been in the top five in all those brainstorming sessions for years now. So it feels great to finally find the right time to do that.
Now thatHearthstonehas delved into the Titans and even created its own Titan, it’ll be interesting to see which direction Blizzard takes next. With Warcraft’s massive amount of lore and countless characters and environments,Hearthstoneundoubtedly has plenty of material to work with. Perhaps the developers will look to olderWorld of Warcraftexpansions like Mists of Pandariaor something that showcasesHearthstone’s sillier side in the future.
Hearthstoneis available on Mobile and PC.
