It looks like we're getting to see gameplay for Hearthstone Mercenaries in just one week on August 31!
- Next week, August 31, Blizzard will officially showcase the new game mode.
- Expect gameplay, tons of content, and a formally announced launch date.
- Twitch Drops will be active. You can earn two Stormwind packs for watching 30 minutes of Hearthstone on Twitch. Details below.
It looks like Mercenaries has received a new logo too, which is a nice update when you compare it to the original which was a tad on the plain side.
Old Mercenaries Logo vs New Mercenaries Logo
So, will you be tuning in? The cinematic trailer leaked earlier today so go and give that a watch to get pumped up and ready to go.
Quote From Blizzard Mark your calendars! On August 31, at 9 a.m. PT, on both Twitch and Youtube, join Hearthstone Game Director Ben Lee, Game Designer Joe Killion, and U.I. Designer Hasiba Arshad for a deep dive into the upcoming Mercenaries game mode. The showcase will feature gameplay, reveal tons of content, and formally announce the Mercenaries launch date—it also might include a surprise or two!
On top of that, Twitch drops are back! You can earn up to 2 United in Stormwind packs for watching category-wide on Twitch. Between 8:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. PT, watch 15 minutes of any Hearthstone stream on Twitch to earn one pack and then watch 15 more minutes for the second. As a reminder, Twitch has updated how drops work on their end. Here is what you need to know:
- You will now be able to see your watch time progress towards any given drop.
- You will no longer receive drop rewards automatically. You must instead claim the drop on the channel you’re watching or in the Drops Inventory menu on Twitch within the first 24 hours of earning it.
- Twitch users can now earn rewards before linking their Battle.net account to Twitch. Rewards will expire 7 days after they’ve been claimed if a Battle.net account has not been linked.
After you’ve claimed your reward on Twitch, please make sure you’re logging into the region you’d like to receive the drop(s) on, as the first region you log into will be where we deliver your pack(s). It can take up to ~30 minutes to receive your reward(s) in game after claiming.
Link Your Battle.net & Twitch Accounts
You’ll need to link your Twitch.tv and Battle.net accounts to receive Twitch Drops. Here’s how:
- Log in or create an account on Twitch.tv.
- Navigate to the Settings menu by clicking your account name in the top-right corner of the home screen.
- Find the Battle.net section, then follow the instructions after selecting a region and clicking Connect.
- When connecting accounts, be sure that you’re currently logged into the Battle.net account on which you’d like to receive your rewards.
Comments
Well, the small gift window and me having actual work to do means I'll be missing out, which sucks honestly. Especially since I'll likely to watching this thing later anyway, which prompts me to ask: if the gift window is so small, the reward being fairly big (2 stormwind packs), and the fact that it's likely to piss at least one segment of the world because of timezone differences, why not just give us the packs? Or at least broaden the gift window so the whole world could have a go at it instead of asking its audience to frantically turn on the tube just to ignore it.
At least mercenaries is something new. Let's see if the gameplay hold up, because if it doesn't its likely to end up like the innumerable dungeon adventures that currently sit lifeless on the sidelines of single player, given that there's likely no rewards other than the usual one cardback for finishing it.
I’m just glad they confirmed that Kazakus is a dragon
He was confirmed one since his debut in Gadgetzan.
Well, here's to hoping it won't be a raging dumpster fire like Duels. But given the current track record (as in, pretty much every mode is broken in some way at this very moment), not getting my hopes up for this. Also remains to be seen how they monetise this. My guess is it's going to be similar to BGs, as in optional but not really optional if you want to improve your odds...so people are likely to be financially milked on packs, mini-expansions, BGs and Mercenaries at the same time in some form or fashion.
You shouldn't judge Mercenaries based on the performance of Duels. Team 5 have put over a year's worth of work into Mercenaries and the last major game mode that required a lot of work was Battlegrounds which received good reviews. I'd imagine Duels was an after thought that probably took a week to make (Coz it's already based off of Dungeon run), just to keep players happy while they worked on Mercenaries.
But ofc, we still have no idea how the game mode will turn out. So lets just remain optimistic till we see video footage on the 31st 🙃
Simply because its a heavily single player mode, I'm not worried about balance issues in Mercenaries. I know the gameplay is a long way off, but from what little we know so far it looks like it will have parallels with Pokemon games: a single player experience where you collect and train characters, with an option to pit your team against someone else's. Now, some Pokemon teams are certainly stronger than others, and that matters in competitive battling, but not to the degrees of imbalance we see in Hearthstone, and it is of little to no consequence in the single player content.
For as much as I like Duels, I have to admit that the mode has been neglected pretty damn hard.
My hopes are that, once Mercenaries will be released, most of Team 5 will go back to their previous tasks, including Duels.
Questline rewards are like best Duels passives, so Blizz just brought the Duels experience to all HS play modes
Yay, finally a way to get free packs without having to sell your personal information on Youtube.
Noooooo! I’m deep into exams then, fml
It's just 30 min total for 2 packs and you have almost all day (US side). AFK with a stream on.
It constantly amazes me how so many people have time to bitch about something online rather than just do it right.
30 mins and two packs. Not hard if ya WANT them.
It’s not about the packs, it’s about the fact that I will binge that stream from start to finish even though I should be studying.
Don’t know how you took this with such a negative vibe.. it’s not like I could be upset about finally learning more about this hyped up mode
September 2nd here.
Oh well, I guess I am not alone at least lol
Stay strong, we can do this! September 3rd for me but it’s a big one.
Fortunately I’ll have “plenty” of time once the mode releases!
That shot of Valeera continues to make me chuckle for some reason. The face she is making is just goofy.
I still like it better than her standard hero portrait, where she looks like she needs to concede the game and go immediately to the chiropractor.
Haha, agreed. She looks like Draco Malfoy. "Huh, I didn't know you could read."