On this week's Hearthstone podcast CoinConcede, Hearthstone director Ben Lee announced that he was leaving the team to work on another completely different, unannounced project inside Blizzard. In addition, Ben Lee also talked about some changes in Hearthstone in 2022.
Ben Lee has taken over Hearthstone since late 2018 and has been involved in a series of game changes, including the controversial rewards and achievement system, which is now widely accepted by players. During Ben Lee's tenure as director, the team intensified its response to player feedback and the speed at which the game was updated, introducing the Demon Hunter class, as well as mercenary mode; The introduction of new forms of money in terms of commercialization, as well as the sheer volume of skins, was generally mixed.
According to the Speculation of the Hearthstone community, Ben Lee may have joined the new project of Mike Donais and Peter Whalen, the latter two of whom also walked out of the Hearthstone team. The new game is considered a hearthstone-like game, with a mix of CCG and RPG gameplay. Hearthstone content creator Regis Killbin speculates that it could be a CCG open-world game, similar to The Killing Spire.
It's important to note that Blizzard previously unveiled a survival game with an undeclared title and two concept maps, and Ben Lee's project should have nothing to do with it.
In this interview, Ben Lee also talks about Hearthstone's past and future, saying the team always wants to try something interesting and push the standard model in a different direction with some new cards. Hearthstone has only four card types so far, with the most recent hero cards dating back to 2017. The advent of various new types of cards will have a significant impact on the gameplay of the game.
Finally, Ben Lee said hearthstone still maintains a large player base and is more profitable than many AAA games.