Hearthstone is a spinoff of the Warcraft franchise, and for most of the game's history, the stories told within always felt like a "second-tier" sort of canon. These campaigns felt like “What-Ifs”. Lore-wise, it was Joey to the franchise's Friends.
Occasionally, ideas from Hearthstone would cross over and show up in World of Warcraft, like the Tortollan race of ancient turtle people. The MMORPG has the task of figuring out how to tell a grand story backed by 15 years of canon, with player choice and elaborate cinematics.
In the background, Hearthstone has been trucking along. Over the last year, Blizzard has built up a fun, madcap storytelling style. The latest story campaign, Galakrond's Awakening, is proof of Hearthstone's progress. An over-the-top fiasco, where a league of bombastic, villainous characters have stolen a flying magical city. They are being pursued by a series of Indiana Jones-esque heroes, and along the way, massive dragon returns from the dead and begins stirring up trouble.
Poor not Ibsen, but good OK – Hearthstone has found its feet as an actual vehicle for storytelling in the Warcraft universe. The silly, off-beat, and experimental tone is a stark contrast to World of Warcraft
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Hearthstone'S single-player campaigns in 2019 came with a healthy amount of experimentation. Rise of Shadows and Saviors of Uldum set up a roguelike-style run, where players would meet a series of bosses and periodically upgrade their deck. Unlike the competitive side of Hearthstone, which is about quick rounds of back-and-forth card combat, with clever combos and a constantly changing metagame, the single-player side of the game was a puzzle combined with a power fantasy.
The year was experimental, throwing spaghetti at the wall and testing what would stick.
"It was pretty tough," said Ryan Collins, Hearthstone game designer, in an interview with Polygon. “We were like, 'oh, wow, we pretty much perfect what we think dungeon runs are. Rather change it all! ”
While Hearthstone'S developers are telling a story, it may not be true. None of Hearthstone
If World of Warcraft is a tirelessly described and fleshed out fantasy epic, then Hearthstone is a madcap victory lap around the same setting. Experiences storytelling that feels like old RTS days, with characters going down maps and encountering isolated, tricky purposes.
Characters banter, kidnap each other, and pop up in the corners to lend their input. The powerful archmage Khadgar gets advice from his own disembodied head. Great great, dumb fun.
Fancy formats
The final chapter of the campaign returns to an earlier adventure format, where players are assigned a character and a deck for each boss. Whereas the previous two campaigns were based on building up powerful decks to mow down an array of tough bosses, Galakrond's Awakening is all about making use of a predetermined set of tools to overcome specific encounters.
Presented pros and cons to each approach for telling a story. The roguelike-esque format, which Blizzard internally calls bagel (a loose portmanteau of Build As You Go), allows for a wider combo platter of characters and scenarios.
The Awakening style is more specific; walking more of a guided walk down a nice path than traversing a maze. That style also lets the team pull out the stops on setting up the board to tell a story. “We make sure we know who is playing, what their deck is, who is facing and what their deck is, and that allows us to write the dialogue and give more story moments and beats, ”says Collins.
As for the end, it is ambiguous. The story is a callback to the days of Warcraft and Warcraft 2; players have access to two very different campaigns, with different perspectives. They touch and agree on some things, but disagree on others. It feels very Warcraft.
Flexibility on the board
While there are visual effects that help tell the story (like a giant shadow descending on a board, plucking a minion card up in its talons, and taking it away), one of the biggest pros Hearthstone has going for it is the fact that it keeps so open in terms of format. Anything can happen, and it needs to be equally shared between (or centered around) the Horde and Alliance.
Whereas the format of World of Warcraft necessitates funneling players into the Murder Room in order to fight a Raid Boss, a villain in Hearthstone can be more flexible. The board is limited in what it can portray, but it also has a certain strength – it only needs to sketch out the details and convey the action, and that allows the game to tell a wider variety of stories.
In the end, Galakrond's Awakening may not be “canon.” None of Hearthstone may be, if the tales are tall enough and our narrators are unreliable enough. But the campaigns have become one of the strongest parts of Blizzard's current suite of offerings at the moment, which is no small task.