Hearthstone: Battlegrounds Revealed at BlizzCon

Blizzard is officially ushering Hearthstone into the auto-battler genre with a new game mode called "Battlegrounds" which was announced during BlizzCon 2019. Hearthstone: Battlegrounds will be a free mode released for Hearthstone players where they select minion units to join their team before placing them around a battlefield to do battle on their own. This game mode will first be playable from November 5th to November 11th by those who own one of the BlizzCon Virtual Tickets, but everyone else will be able to play on November 12th when the game mode starts its open beta.

The announcement for the game mode was accompanied by the trailer above that showed off how Battlegrounds would work in Hearthstone. Players choose a Hearthstone character to be the leader of their army and then wage war against seven other players until one is left.

"Welcome to Hearthstone: Battlegrounds, the brand-new auto-battling game mode that introduces a fresh, strategic, 8-player experience to Hearthstone," In Battlegrounds, you'll take on the role of a familiar Hero straight out of Hearthstone history, craft a powerful board of recruited Minions, and face-off in an action-packed series of duels until a single winner is crowned!"

Blizzard's post on the company's press site had some more details on how Battlegrounds works and how it'll tie into the normal Hearthstone experience. It's meant to stand on its own apart from the game without any card collection mechanics built into it, but that doesn't mean your Hearthstone play won't have an effect on Battlegrounds. Once the Descent of Dragon expansion releases, everyone gets to play Battlegrounds for free and can start acquiring the new Hearthstone card packs. Once your acquire different increments of these packs, you'll unlock features in Battlegrounds.

"At 10 packs, players unlock comprehensive stat-tracking in Hearthstone: Battlegrounds (slated for release following beta testing); at 20 they can choose from three different Heroes instead of two at the start of each match; and at 30, players unlock the ability to taunt or playfully communicate with their opponents using a visual emote system," Blizzard said about the Hearthstone connections to Battlegrounds.

Those who have seen games like this one before may recall that both Dota 2 and League of Legends adopted their own similar game modes. Whether you want to call this an auto-chess game or an auto-battler, the direction it's taking is clearly in line with those other game modes.

Hearthstone: Battlegrounds releases for BlizzCon Virtual Ticket holders starting on November 5th and will be available for everyone else on November 12th.