Since its release back in 2014, fans of the World of Warcraft-inspired card game Hearthstone have eagerly awaited the day it might make the jump from digital platforms to their tabletops. However, if my conversation with Hearthstone director Tyler Bielman and executive producer Nathan Lyons-Smith is any indication, that won’t be happening anytime soon.
During Blizzard’s Hearthstone Spotlight event, I spoke to the pair about the future of Hearthstone and its upcoming expansion, Cataclysm. Among the questions I asked was if–in light of an ongoing trading card game renaissance–the team was considering developing a physical version of the card game. Though Bielman initially said, “I’ll start with we have nothing to announce today,” what followed seemed to indicate that we’re still a long way out from that being a possibility.
According to Bielman, bringing Hearthstone to the physical trading card game arena would require “sacrificing a lot of things,” many of which the team find fundamental to the game’s overall experience.
“Part of what makes Hearthstone what it is, is that from the very beginning, our founding fathers of Hearthstone asked the question, ‘If you could remove all the pain points from physical play, [what would you do?]’ They asked all these questions and then they put this game together in a way that is really digital magic,” Bielman explained before breaking out into laughter. “Sorry, not Magic the … Incredible digital experiences!”
“If you were to translate Hearthstone into a physical format, you would be sacrificing a lot of things–a lot of things that make it special,” Bielman continued. “Now that said, the core of what makes Hearthstone a great game is pretty universal and very accessible. And that’s why it’s been around for 12 years. But I think that we would lose so much in that translation. We would have to be really careful about defining for ourselves what makes Hearthstone great in the minds of all the players, and then how much of that could we recapture if we take it to a different platform at all.”
Lyons-Smith then added that the Hearthstone team “loves card games” and several of its developers are even partaking in regional qualifier events for Lorcana, Riftbound, and Star Wars: Unlimited.
“[Trading card games] are having a moment. It’s super awesome,” Lyons-Smith said. “We want to be positioned to be ready to welcome them into the digital space with the best digital card game, and so we think about it in that context. We’ve got a long horizon on what kind of R&D that we’re exploring, and what would be the right thing for us to do in that space and when and considering all those.”
While we might not be getting a physical version of Hearthstone anytime soon, there’s still plenty of big announcements for players to be excited about. Blizzard recently revealed that the game’s next expansion, Cataclysm, is coming March 17, and will offer a glimpse into what would have happened if Deathwing had triumphed in the World of Warcraft event by the same name. The expansion will bring Colossal minions back to Hearthstone as well as two new keywords: herald and shatter.
