Hearthstone Mercenaries: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and What You Can Expect

Hearthstone is trying its hands on yet another game genre with the reveal of Mercenaries last weekend at BlizzConline.

Battlegrounds is one of the most popular autobattlers in the market at the moment and the recently released Duels game mode is regularly churning out content updates but that isn’t stopping the developers at Blizzard HQ from coming up with their own version of a rogue-like adventure.

With characters such as Gruul, Sylvanas Windrunner, and Thrall confirmed so far, there’s no denying that having a diverse and exciting cast of characters is vital to the new game mode’s player experience. But how does the Hearthstone team exactly go about deciding which iconic Warcraft characters make it into the Mercenaries roster?

A dynamic cast of mercenaries so far, but who else can we expect? © Blizzard

“We’re still looking into all the characters that we can add but there are definitely ones that immediately come to mind like Sylvanas and King Krush,” says Game Designer Joseph Killion. “A lot of other characters that are iconic to both Warcraft and Hearthstone will make their way into the game mode.”

That’s not all, though.

“If you can recall the news on the 10 new mercenary characters we’re introducing in Forged in the Barrens, well those characters will be seen in Mercenaries as well so you’ll get to know their stories from Mercenaries and other content we have in store,” Joseph adds.

Joseph was all smiles when he answered our queries. © Blizzard

That’s exciting news for sure but it’s worth noting that there’s a lot of stuff about Mercenaries that haven’t been ironed out. While we know that a mercenary’s unique set of abilities (as well as additional ones) can be unlocked by leveling them up, a fair number of people have begun to wonder if all the mercenaries will be unlocked and fully playable at the start of the game mode.

“We’re still figuring out a lot of things when it comes to Mercenaries and we’ll definitely have more to share in the future. Right now, we don’t have the answer to that,” Joseph responds.

Anyone who has played the different game modes Hearthstone has to offer is well aware that all the battlefields have a unified theme: a board separated in half that has your minions on one side and your opponent’s minions on the opposite side. You can expect Mercenaries to steer away from that trend.

Nothing to see here, just your typical Hearthstone battlefield. © Blizzard

“Mercenaries is a very different game mode compared to the deckbuilding style we see in Constructed, Arena, and Duels, and it’s also very different from Battlegrounds. We’ll have more details to share about that in the future,” says Joseph.

Hearthstone Mercenaries won’t come out until later this year so expect things to shape up more in the months to follow. In the meantime, set your eyes on the Year of the Gryphon’s first expansion, Forged in the Barrens, which is set for release in March.

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