Hearthstone to get three more big expansions in 2018
With single-player content in each.
Hearthstone's 2018 release schedule will take the form of three more big expansions, developer Blizzard has revealed.
After years of alternating between 100-plus card expansions and smaller, narrative-driven single-player "Adventure" drops, 2017 has seen a move to consolidate the two.
The result - three expansions in one year, with single-player content included - will continue into 2018.
Speaking to Eurogamer's Hearthstone-focused sister site Metabomb, lead artist Ben Thompson talked a little about what fans can expect.
"It's hard to put definitive numbers to those sets, but three full sets - whatever that may mean, give or take cards - is absolutely the plan, with missions in each," Thompson confirmed.
It's a shame to see Adventures go away, but Blizzard has shown it is committed to replicating their single-player gameplay in recent set expansion releases.
Hearthstone's most recent expansion Knights of the Frozen Throne included some of this content for free. The game's next big card drop - December's Kobolds and Catacombs - includes a choose your own adventure-style activity, Dungeon Run.
"At this point we feel it's best to continue to add mission content to the actual release set for several reasons," Thompson continued.
"There's a lot of solid single-player content that happens with each and every set, there's certainly a subset of players who like those - and even prefer those in some cases. At the same time it provides a lot of opportunity for complexity to be put in that model.
"With Adventures, we were somewhat fettered by the fact there were cards we needed to get out there, we wanted to add those 30-plus cards to the meta, but we couldn't gate those from players based on experience. If they didn't complete the Adventure and they don't get those cards, that sucks.
"We needed to tone down the complexity of the Adventures, and as a result they were less challenging for the more experienced players - and we certainly got that feedback.
"This is a way we get to put the challenge into them - and certainly with the Dungeon Run there'll be a ton of challenge in there - but there's no gated content behind that, other than a card back for beating all nine heroes. It's very different from 'I don't have a card I can add to my deck now and make a certain deck type'.
"For that reason, putting together three full releases with mission content is a big part of how we see the game going forwards."
There's plenty more on Hearthstone's future to be found in Metabomb's full interview - sit down by the fire and give it a read.