How Constant Change Will Keep Hearthstone's New Mode Fresh, According To Blizzard
Steve Watts
9/1/2023
As one of Blizzard's live-service games, the Hearthstone team has constantly looked for new ways to keep the game fresh. A steady stream of new cards has been complemented by extra modes like Tavern Brawl and Battlegrounds, along with less successful experiments like Mercenaries. The core deck-building experience, though, has remained relatively straightforward. The Standard mode includes a Core set and latest expansions, while the Wild mode includes every card released for the game.A short-lived Classic mode let players reexperience the game in its launch state, but Blizzard found it was static and players tapered off quickly. That prompted replacing it with Twist, a new mode that will rotate a different theme every season. Seasons might emphasize different types of synergies than it's possible to achieve with the Standard and Wild division. For its beta period, the Twist theme was called New Age and revolved around the Core set along with every set since the Demon Hunter introduction in Ashes of Outland. The first official season, Wonders, launched this week. Wonders recalls the early day of Hearthstone, bringing back every expansion up to Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, along with the new Wild expansion, Caverns of Time.We spoke with Matt London, lead modes designer; Rahul Nagarkar, software engineer; and Sola Chang, UI/UX designer about the new Twist mode, how they approach coming up with new ideas for the constantly-changing format, and how they get inspired by the specific cards players just love, even if they have a low win-rate.Continue Reading at GameSpot...
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