After teasing more than an ice-cream cake on an unwatched table, Blizzard has announced one of the new games they’ve been working on behind closed doors. No, it’s not Project Titan, news about that should come this Blizzcon. It’s something else entirely, completely different from the norm – it’s a CCG, named Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.
A far cry from what most people have gotten used to expecting from Blizzard, their new game will be a free-to-play strategic card game that they’re releasing on PC, Mac and later on the iPad.
Blizzard isn’t a newcomer to the videogame industry – they know they are doing something truly special with this game. First of all it’s going to have plenty of people coming from the current player base of World of Warcraft. Secondly, droves of the old Warcraft guard may peek over the counter to see what all the fuss is about – the game does include their game’s iconography and lore, so it may even apply to the people who are waiting for Warcraft 4.
Of course, the angle could also be to funnel more players into Blizzard’s older and more established families of hardcore games that have evolved over the years. The elements are all there – a casual-looking game with the trademark “easy to learn, difficult to master” style of play underneath, a free-to-play model as well as an extremely colourful and attractive art style. It will certainly attract more players to the Warcraft universe, that much is a given.
The payment model that is employed will be a card game standard, at least from what they say thus far, with all of the game being free-to-play with the possibility of buying five-card booster packs for a dollar (subject to change). You can also get booster pack by earning them in-game, so all’s good. The game also uses a card crafting system, where you can disenchant duplicate cards into arcane dust for use in card crafting and other such standards lifted from the popular MMORPG.
Another rather large component of the game will be cross-platform play, which, while not an industry first in the CCG genre, is a great move on Blizzard’s part. Seeing as it’s going to come on portable devices like the iPad will increase the game’s popularity even more, adding to the fact that the game can be played for short periods at a time. It’s yet another game you’ll be able to play comfortably on the toilet, just like the insanely popular Magic the Gathering series of games, which will make for the main competition of Hearthstone.
Seriously though, it’s a historical move on the studio’s part. They seem to take a page out of Double Fine’s book and experimenting with fast development cycles using small cohesive teams of “ninjas”, as they call them, to put up a game that is not going to take ages between announcement and release.
The competition is not an easy one though, Magic as a TCG has a huge history and a lot of development behind it – coming on top against such an industry giant may prove as easy as keeping booster pack prices low. MTG’s booster packs are generally expensive, even the online ones, so the attractiveness of Hearthstone as well as the low prices may be enough to entice even Magic players to these more colourful pastures (or planes, hah).
Releasing this game into the wild is a challenge on Blizzard’s part for sure, but one that is going to pay dividends considering the huge amount of people who will want to play a game that is made by a team of 15 people in less than a whole year.
I’m excited about this game and so are you – not just about playing the game itself, but about what it means to Blizzard as a company if they succeed in getting the game out in 2013.
Apply for the beta and look for it coming up this summer, on the PC.
