In this week's Hearthstone update patch notes, the game is being changed to no longer work on devices with less than 2 GB of RAM.

This isn't a huge blow to the game's audience as the overwhelming majority of phones that have come out in the past few years exceed this requirement, but it is an unfortunate change if you haven't had an opportunity to update your device.

  • The last iPhone to release with less than 2 GB of RAM was the iPhone 6 Plus (2014).
    • 6s and 6s Plus have 2GB and are now the minimum specs. (2015)
  • The last Samsung Android phone to release with less than 2 GB of RAM was the Galaxy S3 (2012)
    • The Galaxy S3 LTE edition had 2GB and meets requirements.
    • The Galaxy S4 and beyond have 2GB or more.

Last year when Battlegrounds first launched, Hearthstone stated that the mode would not be available to players on devices with less than 2 GB of RAM. This was the first time Blizzard has given a specific mode in the game a system requirements restriction that was different from the rest. We don't know if Battlegrounds is the reason for the change, it could just be that Blizzard wants more memory available for the game to improve the experience as a whole on mobile, but we'll let you know if we learn anything new on that front.

We've included a list of Hearthstone's System Requirements down below.

Hearthstone's Minimum Recommended System Requirements

Quote From Blizzard

iOS Minimum

  • Hardware: Pad® Air™ 2 or newer, iPad® 5 or newer, iPad® Pro or newer, iPad® mini™ 4 or newer, iPhone® 6S or newer, iPod Touch® 7 or new
  • Operating System: iOS 10.0 or later

Android Minimum

  • Operating System: Android 5.0 (Lollipop) / Fire OS 5.0 or later
  • Processor: 1.2 GHz or better
  • Memory: 2 GB RAM
  • Storage: 4GB Internal or 1 GB Internal & 4 GB External

Android Recommended

  • Operating System: Android 5.0 (Lollipop) / Fire OS 5.0 or later
  • Processor: 1.5 GHz or better
  • Memory: 2 GB RAM
  • Storage: 5GB Internal

Update: Celestalon Responds

Celestalon stated in a reply to our tweet on the news that "No Longer Playable" (our headline) and "No Longer Supported" (Blizzard patch notes) are different things.

We agree that they are different, however, it is a bit misleading. Older devices have clear issues running Hearthstone, which is why they are no longer being "supported" by Blizzard. If the Hearthstone mobile experience is lacking to the point that Blizzard no longer supports these devices, it is more than fair by us to state the game is no longer playable on them. Many users on older devices that were previously supported know that the game does not run as well, making it unplayable in some scenarios.

It also isn't really a huge issue considering that we're talking about devices that are at least 6 years old at this point. While not everyone can or wants to update their phones regularly, iPhones don't have many models in usage anymore according to data from DeviceAtlas showing the only "unsupported" Hearthstone iPhones with usage being the 6 (~6%) and 5s (1.5%) of all iPhone traffic.

You can decide whether or not the game is playable, just don't use card balance as a reason!

Hearthstone Patch 19.2

Looking for more information on the December 15 patch? Here's all our coverage!