Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft coming to iPad
Blizzard Entertainment has released the iPad version of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. The mobile version of the card game is free to download. The game can be played online cross platform. A version for Android and Windows 8 tablets is yet to come.
Card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft officially debuted on March 12 for Windows and OS X. Blizzard had previously announced that it is also working on a mobile version of the game. The version for iPad has now been released. Like the version for Windows and OS X, the iPad version is free to download and play. Blizzard hopes to monetize the sale of additional playing cards for the game. These can also be earned by playing the game, but those with less patience can buy so-called booster packs. An internet connection is required to play and it can be cross-platform, so the iPad version can be played against players on the other platforms. The iPad version only runs on iPad 2 and later. Blizzard is still working on versions for Android, iOS phones and Windows 8 tablets.
Blizzard announced a single player expansion for Hearthstone a week ago, dubbed Curse of Naxxramas: A Hearthstone Adventure. The expansion takes place in Naxxramas, a dungeon from mmog World of Warcraft. In Hearthstone, the campaign contains five chapters, which correspond to the five wings of the dungeon. By playing the expansion, players can earn 30 new cards, which can be used in online battles. Curse of Naxxramas will be released simultaneously for Windows, OS X and iPad, although Blizzard doesn’t know when.
Hearthstone is a collectible card game, similar to Magic: The Gathering. The characters depicted on the cards and the skills they can use are derived from World of Warcraft. Hearthstone is an experiment for Blizzard; it is made by a small development team that is given a lot of freedom. Due to the success of Hearthstone, Blizzard wants to bring such small-scale games to the market more often. For example, there is an alpha test of Heroes of the Storm, a moba game that once originated as an internally developed mod for Blizzard’s own RTS StarCraft II. Heroes of the Storm features characters from all three of Blizzard’s major game series; Warcraft, Diablo and StarCraft.