Hearthstone is a multi-platform free to play strategy card game in which players get to pick one of nine epic Warcraft heroes and take turns playing cards from their very own customizable decks and cast spells, use weapons or summon creatures.

Games have a 100% of free-to-play-ness, but that % will vary depending on the answers to the questions.

Let’s start.

• No. There is no fee to download or play the game.

• No. No subscription options currently exist.

• Yes (but…). -10%. The expansions released new dungeons with different areas, these individual areas can be opened through paying in game gold or real cash.

• Yes (but…). -10%. Booster packs give a guaranteed chance of getting a Rare or higher quality card and are the only place to earn Legendary cards; whilst players can earn cards through acquiring gold by playing it can be very time consuming and so there is an obvious benefit for ease of access to higher level cards.

• No (but…). -5%. Players are able to develop their settlements more quickly by purchasing resources and upgrades with real cash, but the rate at which these would be used up doesn’t make it a viable pay to win strategy without being extremely expensive, particularly for a game that is more focused on co-op play than competitive. However, there are certain buildings and units that do offer a significant advantage and getting access to them early definitely helps players out and can give them the edge in the PVP Colonies.

• ―. The game doesn’t support UI customization.

• Yes. There are currently nine classes/heroes available to play, each with their own types of cards, and all are currently free to access and play.

• ―. The game does have a market place and doesn’t support player trading , the only feature similar is the ability to disenchant cards to get Dust from them to create new cards, however this is a free to access feature.

• No. Players can acquire as many cards as they wish and are able to make multiple decks without payment restriction.

• Yes (but…). -10%. The new dungeons made available in the expansions have locked wings that players must pay to access, either spending in game gold or real cash to unlock each wing independently to try and defeat it and gain the rewards from it.

• No. The main competitive PVP feature is the Arena where players can pay gold or cash to try and win as many games as possible with their deck, each player has three lives and depending on how many victories they claim will determine the rewards that they get. Players always gain a standard booster pack when they enter the Arena, and those who get at least seven wins will be rewarded with enough gold to cover their initial entry fee (providing it was gold they spent and not cash).

• Yes. +10%. The game is extremely fun and there are plenty of ways to build up your deck simply by playing the game, defeating the AI or acquiring gold to buy booster packs and enter the Arena. For those players who want to be competitive then spending some cash is likely, particularly if they lack the patience to try and get the cards they want for their deck; but many competitive pro decks are made out of fairly standard cards.

Hearthstone gets a 75% in our test!

If you want to know more about this title visit our profile by clicking the "Info" button below.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 2015 at 4:33 pm and is filed under Articles, MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.