The newest Hearthstone solo adventure, Galakrond's Awakening, is officially underway today and will offer the first chapter of the new campaign for free to all players. Hearthstone is experiencing a resurgence lately thanks to the extremely popular Hearthstone Battlegrounds, a spin on the auto chess genre that has enticed many fans away from competitors and into Blizzard's combination card game and auto battler.
Another reason Hearthstone has been more positively received over the last few months is the new Standard format that has managed to avoid the staleness that previous sets had set in rather quickly. Design has clearly scaled down card power and, on top of the many Hearthstone bans and rotations that have happened over the last year, it finally feels like the game is in a healthy place again. Naturally, that hasn't completely erased the negative connotations many still associate with a game that infamously banned once of its professional players for expressing their political stance during a broadcast, and subsequent Blizzard apologies on the controversy - or lack thereof - have left many feeling that the issue will never be addressed in the way it should be.
The new Hearthstone solo adventure, Galakrond's Awakening, was announced on the Play Hearthstone blog as live today as another incentive for players to return to the game as it continues to churn out meaningful and fun content. The first chapter of the new E.V.I.L. campaign will be free to all players, with four card rewards up for grab to those who manage to complete it. The adventure sees the solo campaign return to Northrend where the League of E.V.I.L. will attempt to resurrect proto-dragon Galakrond. Players will get to play as both heroes and villains during the campaign, but the League of Explorers first chapter is still behind a paywall. Each individual chapter will be $7 or 700 gold, or players can simply grab the whole campaign for $20 up front.
The new Hearthstone solo adventure will add a total of 35 cards, alongside two card backs related to Galakrond's Awakening. Given the recent quality of Hearthstone offerings over the past few months, it seems like a lock that some of these new cards will be players in the Standard format, while Galakrond's Awakening itself should add more variety to an already robust amount of solo content.
With so many new competitors emerging for Hearthstone's previously unassailable stature in the digital card game community, it's encouraging to see Blizzard release so many meaty content updates to keep players in the feedback loop that these games thrive on. While Magic Arena and the up-and-coming Legends of Runeterra appear to be well-positioned to eke out significant portions of the admittedly niche demographic, there's nothing to suggest that Hearthstone will be unable to do the same - and perhaps, with more content like Galakrond's Awakening, its solo campaigns will set it apart.
Hearthstone is available now on PC, Mac, and iOS and Android mobile devices.
Source: Play Hearthstone