As a part of the Blizzard 30th anniversary celebration, the Hearthstone Twitter account has posted some early sketches of Hearthstone!

These sketches come from Ben Thompson, who left Blizzard in 2019, and showcase early looks at card packs, the collection manager, and interface for the Forge (Arena). Check out the images and our observations down below.

Card Packs

  • There were several designs looked at for packs.
    • Bag/Satchel
    • Jewel Box
    • Box
    • Leather Wrapped (Close to the final version of Classic Pack)
      • Also possibly contained envelopes that each card was inside. (That'd be quite a few animations!)
  • The Classic pack originally had a Warcraft "W" logo.
  • One early concept shows that card packs unravelled.
  • There wasn't a dedicated pack opening scene, instead, you selected open packs in the collection manager to bring open a list of your packs on the left side. 
    • After clicking on the pack you wanted to open, another temporary element slid in from the right to let you open it.
    • After the pack was opened, the screen slid back and you'd be instantly back into your collection.
    • This feels like a Warcraft 3 thing. Lots of sliding elements in their UI.
  • Below you can read the notes on how pack opening was going to work with the animations.

Collection Manager

  • Originally, the decklist and list of your decks was on the left side of the manager.
  • 15 cards, instead of the 8 we see today, were on each page.