Hearthstone‘s newest patch is here, and the collectible card game is introducing one of its biggest updates in a very long while. Along with a collection of typical bug fixes and quality-of-life updates, the big seller this time is the introduction of a new game mode called Hearthstone Mercenaries, allowing players to gather popular characters and send them off into various combat situations to collect bounties. Similar to Battlegrounds, cards aren’t used in this new mode, and players will need to gather a party of mercenaries in the town hub called The Village. Mercenaries will travel up a map and engage in procedurally-generated encounters, adding some roguelike flair to the title. This mode is also free-to-play and is available today.
A Mercenaries Gameplay trailer was uploaded to YouTube yesterday, with a pretty catchy soundtrack:
To start, the new Mercenaries mode will feature 51 playable characters, and will also include a PvP option. It will have its own rating and matchmaking system, which Blizzard calls the most incredibly complex in the game so far. More details on the technology being utilized are scheduled to hit the company’s official website sometime in the near future. Upon launch, many daily and weekly quests in Hearthstone will not be compatible with Mercenaries.
Along with the new mode, today’s patch also adds the yearly Hallow’s End event to the game, filled with festive cosmetic options which will be available starting next week. The new Fairy Tales Bundle will include skins for Jaina, Rexxar, Thrall, and Anduin. The actual festivities will begin once patch 21.6 is released, with more details coming soon.
Hearthstone was originally released in 2014 and is free-to-play on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. Featuring cross-play, the game pulls from the lore of the ever-expanding Warcraft series, with many characters, relics, and elements using the same names.