Blizzard was set to reveal many more of the new Hearthstone cards planned for the “United in Stormwing” expansion recently, but those reveals didn’t play out as expected after a stream intended to show off more cards was canceled. Instead, the cards included in the United in Stormwing expansion have been shared online via the Hearthstone site alongside patch notes for the game’s next update. The patch in question is meant to prep for the expansion itself which is still scheduled to launch on August 3rd. The cancelation of the stream comes in the wake of the lawsuit filed against Activision Blizzard.
Over on the Hearthstone Twitter account, the game’s developers teased on July 19th that the card reveals would start coming soon. They began the next day with Blizzard revealing a few while content creators revealed their own. Those reveals have since stopped, however, with the Hearthstone Twitter account along with other social accounts connected to Activision Blizzard pausing their posts since news of the lawsuit broke.
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Stormwind’s got an unofficial king in town.
Bow down to the Rat King! ๐๐ pic.twitter.com/2tciRnjPJy
โ Hearthstone (@PlayHearthstone) July 20, 2021
Instead of revealing the cards through the normal trickle of debuts leading up to the big reveal event, Blizzard has gone ahead and put all the new cards up on the game’s site to check out. A total of 135 cards from the expansion have been added with the expansion itself still scheduled to release on August 3rd at this time. Patch notes are also available to look through, too.
Amid speculation within the community about legal restrictions that might be preventing the Hearthstone team from saying anything about the plans for the expansion seeing how socials have gone dark, Hearthstone game designer Dean Ayala commented on a Reddit post to say the team’s been focusing on each other. Ayala also said there are currently no plans to delay the launch of the expansion or to “push back further developments” and that no legal team had instructed them to stay quiet.
“Having any celebration is a hard sell right now,” Ayala said. “I can assure you the only hesitation we have with moving forward with things like streams or card reveals is out of the respect for our co-workers. This is an incredibly important time to reflect and make sure we chart the best path forward. There is no gag order, no legal team telling us what we can and can’t say. Our focus is simply on each other right now.”
Ayala’s comments can be seen in full here, and the new Hearthstone expansion will arrive on August 3rd barring any delays.
[H/T GameSpot]