‘Hearthstone’ Expansion, ‘The Grand Tournament,’ Announced

hearthstone grand tournament — Promotional art for "The Grand Tournament" expansion of "Hearthstone." http://us.battle.net/

Blizzard promised fans a huge “Hearthstone” announcement and it seems like the studio has lived up to its promise with the “The Grand Tournament” expansion for the popular mobile game. “The Grand Tournament” is the latest expansion to hit “Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft,” which will feature 100 new cards for fans to collect and will get released this August, though no specific date in that month has been given.

According to a report from Polygon, “The Grand Tournament” will be based on the “Argent Tournament” update that hit “World of Warcraft” (WoW) on the PC, though Blizzard is promising that the “Hearthstone” expansion will be much more light-hearted. Considering that "WoW" fans associate the “Argent Tournamnet” with mounts and jousting, it will be interesting to see how “The Grand Tournament” differs from it, aside from the obvious fact that it’s a mobile card game.

Touch Arcade has also stated that the “Hearthstone” board will be getting a major revamp for the upcoming expansion, as it will become even more interactive than it originally was. Considering how many fans liked the original board since it was incredibly user-friendly, it will be interesting to see these big changes and how they’ll affect the overall gameplay of the popular mobile card game.

Prior to the announcement, Blizzard had been teasing this expansion for a while now, with many fans immediately thinking it would somehow be related to the “Argent Tournament.” While it was a mostly correct guess, “Hearthstone” has a reputation for being a light-hearted mobile game, so it was clear that Blizzard couldn’t go all the way and add a dark expansion to a light game, hence “The Grand Tournament.”

“Hearthstone” has enjoyed a lot of relative success for being a fair free-to-play mobile game that is user-friendly and still appealed to fans of Blizzard’s “World of Warcraft” game. Anyone who hasn’t jumped into the bandwagon yet can download “Hearthstone” right now for iOS and Android devices, while the big “Grand Tournament” expansion hits the card battler next month with over 100 new cards and an improved board for card playing.