Whispers of the Old Gods, the highly anticipated third expansion for Blizzard's massively popular digital trading card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, finally has an official launch date.
The expansion will contain 134 new cards, including corrupted versions of older cards, along with four powerful minions collectively called the Old Gods named C'Thun, N'Zoth, Yogg-Saron and Y'Shaarj.
Hearthstone players can expect the expansion to arrive on April 26 in the Americas and on April 27 in Asia and Europe, according to Blizzard.
Once the expansion is released, players will be able to purchase Whispers of the Old Gods packs through Hearthstone's in-game shop. For gamers who availed of the pre-purchase offer of 50 packs for $49.99, the packs can be opened right upon the release of the expansion.
For those who are still thinking about whether to take up the pre-purchase offer, the deadline to avail it is until the time that Whispers of the Old Gods goes live. Making the offer sweeter is the fact that those who avail it will also receive a card back in a Whispers of the Old Gods theme.
In addition to the new expansion, another major change coming to Hearthstone is the launch of the Standard and Wild formats in Play mode. The Standard format will allow players to only use cards from the Basic and Classic sets, plus the expansions Blackrock Mountain, The Grand Tournament, The League of Explorers and Whispers of the Old Gods in their decks. The inaugural Standard year will be known as the Year of the Kraken, which is a nod to the game's latest expansion.
The Wild format, on the other hand, will be the new name for the Play mode that is currently available, where all cards from all expansions are allowed to be used by players in their decks.
There will be separate rankings for each format, with Blizzard believing that the introduction of Standard will lead to a metagame that is more dynamic and balanced.
