A few days ago, Blizzard announced that support for the Duels game mode will end and the entire game mode will be removed from the Hearthstone client in April 2024. Duels was not very popular, but it had its enthusiasts and a surprisingly solid viewership on YouTube, primarily for Roffle as of late and RegisKillbin earlier. This dedicated but relatively small community was not enough for Blizzard to keep the mode around.
But what does this mean for Hearthstone as a whole? What will happen to other Hearthstone game modes? What is the future of Hearthstone? In this article, I will try to dig deeper into these questions.
The History of Hearthstone Game Modes
Hearthstone added a number of new game modes over the years. In the beginning, there were two: constructed Hearthstone and Arena.
Single-player content was the first thing to be added to the game with the Curse of Naxxramas in July 2014. In the beginning, single-player campaigns were tied to unlocking new cards. Naxxramas was followed up by Blackrock Mountain in April 2015, The League of Explorers in November 2015, and One Night in Karazhan in August 2016.
Hearthstone’s single-player content reached the peak of its complexity in 2017-18 with Dungeon Run, Monster Hunt, Puzzle Lab, and Rumble Run providing intricately designed, completely free adventures. After that, single-player content was developed into a storytelling medium that offered little to no replayability but strived to deepen the connection the players had with the current content. This storytelling arc of the single-player content peaked with Book of Heroes in 2021-22.
After Book of Heroes concluded in March 2022, the only single-player content that has been released is the Death Knight prologue from December 2022. A long run with multiple directions seems to have come to a close.
The weekly Tavern Brawl, a quirky mode to enjoy for a bit of fun or just to get a weekly free pack, was added to the game in June 2015. Nowadays, most Tavern Brawls are repeats of previous Brawls. The number of original Brawls declined heavily during 2020, and almost completely stopped after that. The most notable exception is the Battle of the Bands from June 2023: it was basically the single-player storyline for Festival of Legends, but only available for a limited time and it was shorter than the usual single-player stories. Perhaps it was relegated to a Tavern Brawl status because of this.
Like many card games before it, Hearthstone adopted the practice of having a rotating format and an eternal format with the introduction of the Standard and Wild formats in April 2016. This seems to be inevitable for the genre. As the card pool keeps increasing, it becomes impossible to design new cards that significantly change the meta and yet do not introduce significant power creep, unless some of the cards are removed from the pool. By having a rotating format (Standard), it is possible to limit power creep in the game and keep designing new cards for years or even decades. Occasionally, some of the cards will be relevant in the eternal format (Wild) as well, but the eternal format can survive a slower pace of change when there is a more rapidly changing rotating format alongside it. Magic: The Gathering is an excellent example of this. It was the game that invented the entire concept with the introduction of Type 2, later on called Standard, in January 1995.
In November 2019, Hearthstone took a giant leap with the release of Battlegrounds. Battlegrounds uses the Hearthstone client, but it has very little to do with the main game. It is not a collectible card game at all, but instead an implementation of the auto chess or auto battler genre within the Hearthstone client. The Dota Auto Chess mod (January 2019) and the stand-alone Auto Chess game (April 2019) were rapidly rising in popularity, and Hearthstone developers figured that the Hearthstone client could host a similar game.
Battlegrounds has been a blessing and a curse for Blizzard. The mode is popular, even more popular than constructed Hearthstone. Yet, Blizzard has struggled to monetize it. From a fun little side-course in the client, it has become a major feature on its own, and it was not built with monetization in mind at all. Blizzard has tried everything from cosmetics to selling power in the form of hero choices to make Battlegrounds carry its weight in the Hearthstone client. Their financial reporting on the topic is opaque, so we do not know how successful the more recent attempts have been. Between the lines, you can read that the early attempts to monetize the mode were not very successful.
Monetization issues aside, the introduction of Battlegrounds made Hearthstone much more relevant again. It is no wonder that Blizzard saw this as a model for the future. Next time, they’d just monetize their inventions better.
The next new game mode was introduced in October 2020 with the debut of Duels. Duels resembles the Dungeon Run single-player experience, except that it is a PvP format that is updated with each expansion and requires players to own the cards in their starting deck. As strong cards in the format can be ones that see no Standard or Wild constructed play, this offers a natural way to monetize the format as players strive to acquire esoteric cards to play in their Duels decks. Alas, Duels is now about to come to an end.
Duels is not the first game mode to be completely removed from the client, though. The Classic format, which allowed players to play Hearthstone in its original release state and card pool, only lasted from March 2021 to June 2023. As this was a stable format with no changes in the rule set or card pool, it cannot have been planned as a major revenue driver either way.
The next completely new game within the Hearthstone client, Mercenaries, did not have a much brighter fate. Released in October 2021, Mercenaries received its final content patch in February 2023. The mode is still available in the client, but it receives no more updates. Mercenaries attempted to turn Hearthstone into a strategic, turn-based RPG-style game with its own PvE and PvP content. The mode also has its own packs and is almost completely separate from the usual Hearthstone ecosystem.
The latest addition to the Hearthstone family is the Twist format. Introduced in June 2023, the mode is already on a hiatus after enjoying interest that seems to have been lower than the discontinued Mercenaries mode. After Mercenaries had already been discontinued. Twist was supposed to bring older expansions back to relevancy for brief periods of time, but it turns out that the players did not have the cards to play it nor the desire to buy those cards just to play with them for a month here and another there.
Hearthstone as a Platform
Hearthstone’s endeavors into multiple game modes can be traced back to the vision Ben Lee had for the game. Ben Lee joined Blizzard as Hearthstone’s Game Director in December 2018, and he led the creation of Battlegrounds, Duels, and Mercenaries. He still works for Blizzard, although he left the Hearthstone team in April 2022.
Ben Lee had a vision of Hearthstone as a platform that hosts multiple different card games. He talked about it at quite some length in interviews as well. Early on, his vision seemed to be a strong one. Battlegrounds was a success when it comes to player engagement. Duels had a good start, it was played 10 million times on its first day, even if its stable popularity level ended up being far lower. Mercenaries, however, never reached any significant popularity. It had, and to an extent still has, a dedicated community, but the numbers were far too low, a mere fraction of even the stable numbers of Duels.
From mid-2023 to early 2024, Hearthstone has withdrawn from Lee’s vision. Most of the game modes introduced under his watch are now dead. Only Battlegrounds remains, and it is at least half of the game now.
It is too early to say whether Blizzard has completely abandoned the idea of Hearthstone as a platform. If they announce something really new, then maybe they are still interested in this vision, even though its early iterations, apart from Battlegrounds, did not stand the test of time. Then again, the Game Director who was behind this vision is also gone, so it looks like Hearthstone may be returning to a more conservative vision for the game. Back to basics.
How Popular Are Hearthstone Game Modes?
Blizzard does not publish data on Hearthstone popularity, but we have popular deck trackers that collect information on how their users play the game. Now, this is a self-selected sample of enthusiasts, so there can be nuances that are lost in these numbers.
In particular, Firestone periodically posts charts showcasing how their users play Hearthstone. The latest one is slightly after the release of Showdown in the Badlands, and it looks like this:
This chart shows a number of interesting things.
- Battlegrounds is generally the most popular mode among Firestone users
- Standard is the second-most popular, and it becomes the most popular for a while after the release of a new expansion
- Arena is the third-most popular one, and it increases in popularity right before a new expansion when the cards are available in Arena a bit early
- Wild comes in fourth and is rather steady all year round.
- Twist launched to some interest, but it dropped like a rock, even below PvE Mercenaries
- PvE Mercenaries experienced a drop when AFK farming was killed in the mode – it still remained more popular than Twist
Now, Firestone has been used by prominent Battlegrounds players for a long time, so you could expect some bias towards Battlegrounds in addition to the bias generated by people enthusiastic enough to install a deck tracker and by people playing on PC instead of a mobile device, as deck trackers are not available on mobile.
However, comparing these stats to the number of games played according to HSReplay, the other main deck tracker, shows remarkable similarity and no visible bias in favor of Battlegrounds from Firestone users. Both deck trackers obviously share some potential bias, so all of it cannot be eliminated.
The pecking order of various Hearthstone modes seems clear, and the peaks they have in connection with new content seem predictable. Hearthstone as a whole also still looks reasonably popular, at least in terms of the enthusiast PC players. For a free-to-play game, these dedicated people are important as they are also more likely to spend money on the game. Hearthstone as a game does not seem to be going away anytime soon.
What Will Happen to Other Hearthstone Game Modes?
One of the goals of Hearthstone as a platform was to add new content to different parts of the game at a different cadence. One month, there would be new things in Battlegrounds, another month it would be Standard format’s turn, and so on. This would then ensure that players remain engaged throughout the year.
Looking at the numbers, Blizzard has accomplished much of this goal without turning Hearthstone into a platform. The alternating peaks of Standard, Battlegrounds, and Arena are exactly the type of cadence Blizzard has been after. It does not look like they need more game modes to achieve their goals. If anything, they could try to move to a slightly faster cadence per game mode – four expansions per year – and they could do well with their current selection of game modes.
It is also clear that mini-sets do not bring as much engagement as full expansions. That would be another major argument in favor of four expansions per year at the cost of mini-sets.
The main Hearthstone game modes look safe. Standard, Battlegrounds, and Arena all have their peaks. Wild format has been steady all along, and it is not something that Blizzard can really get away from. A card game where you cannot play with your old cards? That would be a PR disaster.
If anything, the main question is whether Mercenaries and Twist will be removed from the client altogether. Mercenaries has the advantage of being completely separate from new expansions, so it is easy to leave in its own little corner. It even has its own packs, so Blizzard knows exactly whether they still make any money from it. They also already removed Mercenaries from the main mobile download of the game in December 2023 and made it an optional asset. There is no hurry to remove it altogether, although that is an option for the future.
The fate of Twist is the main uncertainty. The mode failed badly. Can they rework it and re-release it? Or will they just let it go? I would not bet on Twist to return, but it was not developed on Ben Lee’s watch, so I do not know if it still has enthusiasts in leading positions in the team.
Hearthstone attempted to diversify on Ben Lee’s watch. This was a partial success, as Battlegrounds became a popular game mode. Now, it appears that Hearthstone is returning back to basics, and trying to make their main quartet – Standard, Battlegrounds, Arena, and Wild – work together and improve them. We know from Magic: The Gathering that card games can have a lifespan of decades. Hearthstone is about to close its first decade, and it should have many more to come if properly managed.
Interesting, I see that I’m not the only one (just from the small sample of others who commented here) who used to spend money on HS but stopped not so long ago. In my case I just stopped following constructed completelly and I play only BGs now – just because I find it more fun honestly.
I think Twist is a fail exactly for the reason mentioned in the article – who would want to collect all the old cards for playing few times with them?
Mercenaries I think were interesting, but I always felt like there was something missing – probably some better endgame… it felt like never ending leveling with no clear direction, nothing to aim towards.
I’m just hoping they won’t ruin BGs with some stupid monetization tricks (like no option to choose even from 2 heroes unless you have the pass). We’ll see… even though there were some failures, I still kind of like that they are trying new things – sometimes it works out, sometimes not
Don’t know how wild remained so much more popular than twist.
I used to play wild almost exclusively years ago, but eventually had to quit. The increasing card pool lead to increasingly powerful and consistent decks. Played some again recently, and it is just horrible. Win or lose, who cares. The cards play themselves, your decisions barely matter.
HS needs an equivalent to modern/pioneer in Magic the Gathering where not every old card is in the format, but it also isn’t standard. Twist seems like a good way of doing this. I didn’t like some of the card changes/additions from Caverns, but I appreciated what they were trying to do. I hope they give it another shot, otherwise I’ll probably quit again.
I actually used to put money into the game too on preorders. Even though I didn’t play much standard, some new cards were always wild relevant. But unlike standard, I could more easily play a variety of decks to keep the game interesting without spending a fortune.
If I remember correctly, classic was turned off because there were so many bots in it, so the step was part of the fight against the botting problem.
As for Twist, I think it was designed as an attempt to lure newer players into older card sets, making them spend money every month on the editions that were newly unlocked for the Twist mode.
The biggest mistake they made with Twist was probably that they allowed a small number of decks dominate the meta for too long, making people face the same opposing decks over and over.
Love your content OG.
Am worried that the dropping support from casual modes like duels, twist, brawl (when was the last new one?) and solo content might drive casual players away slowlybut surely.
There are the try harder grinding ladder, but they are being discouraged by the lowered (maybe from this year total lack of) interest from blizz in high stakes e-sports.
Combine this with the increasingly more prevalent botting problem in first casual modes but now even on competitive ladders and Hs is IMHO starting to find itself on very shaky ground under its feet.
I myself have gone back to completely ftp since last year as I don’t feel like spending on a game that is not longer offering on its promises. (9y and a half years of playing and spent about 600 euro on it in the past).
The simple problem is that – besides Battlegrounds – every other game mode Blizzard released was either bad or badly executed. E.g. Mercenaries could’ve been marvelous if it took inspiration from classics like Slay the Spire and be less greedy with monetization as it was (I still remember the Diablo presale desaster).
So, the simple solution is to create good game modes. 😉
Mercenaries isn’t going anywhere soon as people have paid money they can’t use anywhere else for it, but then again other mobile games can close their servers after a while of non-development, so it might still happen down the line.
For Twist they should first try some easier to access modes like mega-standard, where only current year’s cards are allowed, or standard with Baku or Genn in every deck.