Hearthstone Will Release Three Expansions This Year

Release the Kraken.

By Wesley Copeland

As the Year of the Kraken comes to a close, Hearthstone is gearing up for 2017's Year of the Mammoth by announcing a new way of releasing expansions.

Instead of alternating between the cycle of Expansions (card packs) followed by Adventures (player vs CPU with an overarching theme), Blizzard now plans to release  three expansions at specific times of the year: ~130 cards at the start of the year, ~130 in the middle, then another ~130 towards the end of the year. The reason for the change, as detailed over on the Hearthstone blog, is down to storytelling.

“At their core, Adventures paint colorful and thematic stories about the Hearthstone universe,” writes Blizzard. “Imagine being able to learn about the history and lore behind each of our sets inside the game in a similar way!

“Defining who the Jade Lotus are through a series of battles between the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan families would have been a great way to supplement the overall Gadgetzan story arc. That concept is something we would like to do more of in future sets: Take the storytelling and cool missions of Adventures, and combine them with the card pools of expansions.”

Blizzard notes cards will still be attained through packs as they have been, and each new release will include optional single-player missions to develop narratives and offer other challenges.

“We’d like to continue being flexible and refine the way we roll out content so it’s more enjoyable for all of our players,” continues Blizzard. “The second expansion of 2017 will be our first step into this new design, and we plan on building on this concept over time. Additional details about our free single player content will come at a later time.”

For those looking for some freebies, just before the release of the next expansion will be daily login rewards, offering up dust, gold, expansion packs, as well as some unannounced “surprises.” During this same time, players will also be able to net the new Rogue Hero, Maiev Shadowsong, by simply winning 10 games of Hearthstone in Standard Ranked or Casual mode.

For all the latest tips and tricks, be sure to keep IGN’s Hearthstone Wiki bookmarked for future use.

Wesley Copeland is a freelance news writer who writes excellent bios. For more obvious statements and video game chat, you should probably follow him on Twitter.

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