When Hearthstone’s next expansion - Forged in the Barrens – launches, it will be part of the biggest shakeup in the game’s history. Not only will it usher in the Year of the Gryphon, which means three expansions (and change) leave the Standard format, but we will also see Hearthstone’s very bedrock restructured. Up until now, the Basic cards for each class and the Classic set – the cards that launched with the game back in early 2014 – have been the evergreen cards of Hearthstone. They’ve always been there as the underpinning to additional sets that come and go. This means we’ve been playing with the same baseline set of cards for seven years, and it also means that some classes simply have better building blocks than others. Not only that, but Hearthstone’s designers have learnt an awful lot since those first cards were created, and yet they’re the ones that will always be around. No longer. As of rotation, the Basic and Classic cards will be out and a new core set of 235 cards – mostly comprised of existing cards, but also featuring 29 brand new inclusions – will form the baseline for the next year. This set will be completely free, and will be fully unlocked out of the gate for more experienced players, while newcomers will be able to unlock them all quite quickly. It’s a huge change, giving new and returning players a base collection that has value and ensuring that Hearthstone feels completely fresh for seasoned players. And best of all, the core set will change each and every year. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/19/hearthstone-forged-in-the-barrens-reveal-trailer"] As part of Hearthstone’s Blizzcon 2021 announcements, we’ve now seen some of the new cards, and we’ve found out that magical spell schools are being added to the game – including retroactive changes to all relevant spells. And not only that, but the team are making a bunch of tweaks to existing cards to bring them into line with Hearthstone in 2021. I quizzed Game Director Ben Lee and Production Director Nathan Lyons-Smith about the core set to find out more. Here are some of the juicier nuggets from that conversation.

The Core Set for New and Engaged Players

Nathan Lyons-Smith: “I've been playing for a long time, since before I was at Blizzard. I somehow got a beta key and I was in and hooked, right? And I loved the Classic set, and then we got Naxxramas and we got Goblins vs. Gnomes, and over time, we've just seen some of the cards in the core set be super powerful, and as a result, we've sent them to the Hall of Fame because we don't want to keep seeing the same cards over and over again. And then there's some cards that just aren't powerful at all and we don't see those, and that's generally okay for the experienced players, but [for] new players, you're getting a bunch of cards that aren't powerful now, and aren't having as easy a time. And so this really does touch on new players getting a meaningfully powerful core set of cards, completely for free, to come in and engaged players are getting a big shake-up from what they're normally seeing. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=hearthstone-core-set-returning-cards-and-tweaked-cards&captions=true"] “I think one of the things Ben describes really well when we talk about this as a team is, there's some cards in the old Basic and Classic set that are power level 11, and then there's some that are power level one. And it's just scattered across the board, and it depends on all the cards we've created since then. So what I'm most excited about as a highly engaged player is, we're able to curate this core set to fit really nicely with the expansions we're planning to launch this year. “And then next year, as we have another set of expansions launch, we're going to have an updated core set that will be curated to work with those. And that feels really awesome to me as an engaged player. And again, I'm really happy that as we're getting new players in or returning players coming back in, that it's easy for them to get into, because here's the core set. And it's free, you earn it just like you earned the current Basic cards.”[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=We're%20able%20to%20curate%20this%20core%20set%20to%20fit%20really%20nicely%20with%20the%20expansions%20we're%20planning%20to%20launch%20this%20year."]

The Core Set and Tying in With This Year’s Classic Warcraft Theme

Ben Lee: “We've tried to carry that [theme] across to the core set as well. I mean, that's generally how we're thinking about our content across all of our modes this year, there's definitely some leaning into that classic era of Warcraft lore and history. So you can expect to see that appearing through Standard, Battlegrounds, Duels and also Mercenaries as well. In terms of the core set, we've tried to be mindful of that, but sometimes gameplay has to take precedence too. So there's some examples that might feel a little out of place, but that card was really awesome for the core set and the mechanics and linking in with the way that it works. And rather than just making a new card with new art, it's cool for players to have a call-back of, ‘Hey, that's that card I played years ago, and it's back.’ So in general, as a guiding light, absolutely, that's totally on point, but sometimes gameplay has to take priority too.”

Designing New Cards for the Core Set and How That Fits With the Goals for the Year

Ben Lee: “I think the original idea comes from the fact that there were just some holes when you look at the set as a whole and what we would want to do in the future. Quite a lot of that's actually in the legendary cards themselves. There's some really awesome, fun designs in the legendaries in the Classic set, but they just haven't really aged with the game and they're not really competitive. And our players - Hearthstone's evolved a lot, it's very data-driven in terms of how players go about building their decks, the meta, et cetera. “And having these fun cards, there's definitely room for those, and we have those still, but I think [in terms of] the representation towards more like, ‘These are cards we want you to play, and these are cards that are just for fun,’ we've definitely skewed more in this [- the former -] direction, and I think you can see that across all of our expansions. So I think that's one of the core principles of it, is that we want players to have this set of cards and for them to be realistically playable, we want these cards to be able to go in decks. Yeah, there's obviously a few exceptions for that are like, ‘These cards are deliberately meant to be fun.’ Obviously some players will put them in decks, but they're not going to be in like your Tier 1 meta decks.”[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=We%20want%20players%20to%20have%20this%20set%20of%20cards%20and%20for%20them%20to%20be%20realistically%20playable%2C%20we%20want%20these%20cards%20to%20be%20able%20to%20go%20in%20decks."]

Riffing on the Old Designs for the New Malygos, Deathwing and Ysera

Ben Lee: “They're very much inspired by it [- the original designs]. I think Malygos was hard to pull off, which is why it does something different. He still does something with spells, deliberately so, he's the Aspect of Magic after all. But we wanted to try and keep the essence of the original card in those cases as much as we could, and be like, ‘What is the modern take on Deathwing? If we make Deathwing as new a card with the same idea in mind, what would it be?’ And I think Deathwing and Ysera are definitely the best examples of that.” [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=hearthstone-core-set-new-cards-2021&captions=true"]

The Number of Changes That Have Been Made to Existing Cards

Ben Lee: “I don't know the number off the top of my head, it's quite a lot, there's a lot of subtle changes in there… you've probably seen the mana change to Assassinate, and the Overload changes to Shaman, there's more beyond that though. Generally what we've tried to do is look to these cards and been like, ‘How can we make these more playable?’ And some of them just, like we've touched on already, they just haven't aged well, and when you look back and you're like, ‘Could this card be one less mana or could this card have plus +1/+1 on it?’ And the answer to that in a lot of cases is yes. So I think there's some pretty cool implications here, not only for Standard, but also for Wild, because the reality is, players are going to be able to play those cards there too. “And some of those cards are just – they’re just now better in Wild also. So the core set's actually affecting a very broad spectrum of our modes, and beyond that as well, there's actually a whole bunch of changes and reverts from cards coming to Wild as well, so there's a pretty hefty list of what's coming. Not all cards… but there's a lot of Wild cards and cards from history that are getting changes and tweaks.”[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=There's%20actually%20a%20whole%20bunch%20of%20changes%20and%20reverts%20from%20cards%20coming%20to%20Wild%20as%20well%2C%20so%20there's%20a%20pretty%20hefty%20list..."]

Adding Spell Schools Into Hearthstone

Ben Lee: “There's some pretty obvious, basic schools out there that are really in your face - Frost and Fire, and I think that's where a lot of this comes from originally. There’s definitely a fantasy of like, ‘I'm a Mage player and I want to build a Frost deck,’ or, ‘I want to build a Fire deck.’ So it starts from that, and I think when we were looking at synergies and combos... We actually really love minion types, and I think that's been really great for Battlegrounds. Minion type is actually a pretty core mechanic in Mercenaries as well. But players respond really well to it, it's just super fun building a team of Murlocs, or whatever the case is in Battlegrounds. “When you think about spell schools, it taps into the same kind of synergies and the same kind of player mindset, ‘I want to be a Fire Mage. I want to be a Warlock that throws Fel magic.’ The big schools that we're really talking about here are Fel, Shadow, Holy, Frost, Fire, and Nature, and Arcane obviously as well. So a lot of it comes from Mages, but there are definitely other classes that dip into it. And also, this actually gives us a chance to really revisit Shadow as a Priest mechanic. Because over the last year or so, there's a large group of Priest players out there that want to be able to not just be the healing and buffing class, they want to do something different. They love their class and they love some of its older identity, and something like this gives us a chance to bring that back to them as well.” Nathan Lyons-Smith: “Yeah, I think the taxonomy is super helpful… and really fits into the theme of, ‘I want to build this type of deck or have this type of experience.’ But it also… give us tools to say, ‘Hey, you can do this kind of thing with this kind of spell.’ And that's not flexibility we've had before, and so I'm really excited. We've carved out this new design space for the designers to go and explore, and see how they can lean into either more power or less power, depending on the spell school and how it gets used. So lots more to do, this is a permanent change and going back to all of the cards, and so I think there's a lot more to come here.”[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=We've%20carved%20out%20this%20new%20design%20space%20for%20the%20designers%20to%20go%20and%20explore%E2%80%A6"]

Spells Without Schools

Ben Lee: “Some spells don't have schools, it's a lot of what you would consider physical spells. Warrior is a great example of this. Let's say you hypothetically have something that creates a taunt minion or something on those lines, it doesn't really fit into a spell school. So a lot of it's inspired by the art actually, if there's a character doing a big Shadow spell in the art, it's a Shadow spell, and in lots of cases, the naming links into that as well. And a lot of the older stuff, it isn't deliberate synergies, we've had to keep that in mind and try and build into that, so it's actually been a really fun exercise. “We're touching a little bit lightly on that in Forged in the Barrens, [but] in the mini-set that's coming, we’re actually hitting it pretty heavily in some of the classes, so I think it's going to be exciting to see. This is a permanent mechanic that we can lean into for the rest of Hearthstone's future, so you can expect there's going to be points in the future where players are going to be referring to decks as the Fire Mage Deck or the Ice Mage Deck. And I think that's cool fantasy the players like.” Exciting times for Hearthstone, and for those of you itching to see all 235 cards, the full core set will be revealed sometime next week. For now though, be sure to read our coverage of Hearthstone’s new expansion, Forged in the Barrens, and new mode, Mercenaries. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=hearthstone-forged-in-the-barrens-reveal-cards&captions=true"] [poilib element="accentDivider"] Cam Shea is IGN's AU Studio Lead and has a serious soft spot for rave era breakbeat . He also played more Breath of the Wild than any other game last year. Catch him on Twitter. Maybe.

When Hearthstone’s next expansion - Forged in the Barrens – launches, it will be part of the biggest shakeup in the game’s history. Not only will it usher in the Year of the Gryphon, which means three expansions (and change) leave the Standard format, but we will also see Hearthstone’s very bedrock restructured. Up until now, the Basic cards for each class and the Classic set – the cards that launched with the game back in early 2014 – have been the evergreen cards of Hearthstone. They’ve always been there as the underpinning to additional sets that come and go. This means we’ve been playing with the same baseline set of cards for seven years, and it also means that some classes simply have better building blocks than others. Not only that, but Hearthstone’s designers have learnt an awful lot since those first cards were created, and yet they’re the ones that will always be around. No longer. As of rotation, the Basic and Classic cards will be out and a new core set of 235 cards – mostly comprised of existing cards, but also featuring 29 brand new inclusions – will form the baseline for the next year. This set will be completely free, and will be fully unlocked out of the gate for more experienced players, while newcomers will be able to unlock them all quite quickly. It’s a huge change, giving new and returning players a base collection that has value and ensuring that Hearthstone feels completely fresh for seasoned players. And best of all, the core set will change each and every year. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/19/hearthstone-forged-in-the-barrens-mp4-1613774003302mp4"] As part of Hearthstone’s Blizzcon 2021 announcements, we’ve now seen some of the new cards, and we’ve found out that magical spell schools are being added to the game – including retroactive changes to all relevant spells. And not only that, but the team are making a bunch of tweaks to existing cards to bring them into line with Hearthstone in 2021. I quizzed Game Director Ben Lee and Production Director Nathan Lyons-Smith about the core set to find out more. Here are some of the juicier nuggets from that conversation.

The Core Set for New and Engaged Players

Nathan Lyons-Smith: “I've been playing for a long time, since before I was at Blizzard. I somehow got a beta key and I was in and hooked, right? And I loved the Classic set, and then we got Naxxramas and we got Goblins vs. Gnomes, and over time, we've just seen some of the cards in the core set be super powerful, and as a result, we've sent them to the Hall of Fame because we don't want to keep seeing the same cards over and over again. And then there's some cards that just aren't powerful at all and we don't see those, and that's generally okay for the experienced players, but [for] new players, you're getting a bunch of cards that aren't powerful now, and aren't having as easy a time. And so this really does touch on new players getting a meaningfully powerful core set of cards, completely for free, to come in and engaged players are getting a big shake-up from what they're normally seeing. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=hearthstone-core-set-returning-cards-and-tweaked-cards&captions=true"] “I think one of the things Ben describes really well when we talk about this as a team is, there's some cards in the old Basic and Classic set that are power level 11, and then there's some that are power level one. And it's just scattered across the board, and it depends on all the cards we've created since then. So what I'm most excited about as a highly engaged player is, we're able to curate this core set to fit really nicely with the expansions we're planning to launch this year. “And then next year, as we have another set of expansions launch, we're going to have an updated core set that will be curated to work with those. And that feels really awesome to me as an engaged player. And again, I'm really happy that as we're getting new players in or returning players coming back in, that it's easy for them to get into, because here's the core set. And it's free, you earn it just like you earned the current Basic cards.”[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=We're%20able%20to%20curate%20this%20core%20set%20to%20fit%20really%20nicely%20with%20the%20expansions%20we're%20planning%20to%20launch%20this%20year."]

The Core Set and Tying in With This Year’s Classic Warcraft Theme

Ben Lee: “We've tried to carry that [theme] across to the core set as well. I mean, that's generally how we're thinking about our content across all of our modes this year, there's definitely some leaning into that classic era of Warcraft lore and history. So you can expect to see that appearing through Standard, Battlegrounds, Duels and also Mercenaries as well. In terms of the core set, we've tried to be mindful of that, but sometimes gameplay has to take precedence too. So there's some examples that might feel a little out of place, but that card was really awesome for the core set and the mechanics and linking in with the way that it works. And rather than just making a new card with new art, it's cool for players to have a call-back of, ‘Hey, that's that card I played years ago, and it's back.’ So in general, as a guiding light, absolutely, that's totally on point, but sometimes gameplay has to take priority too.”

Designing New Cards for the Core Set and How That Fits With the Goals for the Year

Ben Lee: “I think the original idea comes from the fact that there were just some holes when you look at the set as a whole and what we would want to do in the future. Quite a lot of that's actually in the legendary cards themselves. There's some really awesome, fun designs in the legendaries in the Classic set, but they just haven't really aged with the game and they're not really competitive. And our players - Hearthstone's evolved a lot, it's very data-driven in terms of how players go about building their decks, the meta, et cetera. “And having these fun cards, there's definitely room for those, and we have those still, but I think [in terms of] the representation towards more like, ‘These are cards we want you to play, and these are cards that are just for fun,’ we've definitely skewed more in this [- the former -] direction, and I think you can see that across all of our expansions. So I think that's one of the core principles of it, is that we want players to have this set of cards and for them to be realistically playable, we want these cards to be able to go in decks. Yeah, there's obviously a few exceptions for that are like, ‘These cards are deliberately meant to be fun.’ Obviously some players will put them in decks, but they're not going to be in like your Tier 1 meta decks.”[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=We%20want%20players%20to%20have%20this%20set%20of%20cards%20and%20for%20them%20to%20be%20realistically%20playable%2C%20we%20want%20these%20cards%20to%20be%20able%20to%20go%20in%20decks."]

Riffing on the Old Designs for the New Malygos, Deathwing and Ysera

Ben Lee: “They're very much inspired by it [- the original designs]. I think Malygos was hard to pull off, which is why it does something different. He still does something with spells, deliberately so, he's the Aspect of Magic after all. But we wanted to try and keep the essence of the original card in those cases as much as we could, and be like, ‘What is the modern take on Deathwing? If we make Deathwing as new a card with the same idea in mind, what would it be?’ And I think Deathwing and Ysera are definitely the best examples of that.” [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=hearthstone-core-set-new-cards-2021&captions=true"]

The Number of Changes That Have Been Made to Existing Cards

Ben Lee: “I don't know the number off the top of my head, it's quite a lot, there's a lot of subtle changes in there… you've probably seen the mana change to Assassinate, and the Overload changes to Shaman, there's more beyond that though. Generally what we've tried to do is look to these cards and been like, ‘How can we make these more playable?’ And some of them just, like we've touched on already, they just haven't aged well, and when you look back and you're like, ‘Could this card be one less mana or could this card have plus +1/+1 on it?’ And the answer to that in a lot of cases is yes. So I think there's some pretty cool implications here, not only for Standard, but also for Wild, because the reality is, players are going to be able to play those cards there too. “And some of those cards are just – they’re just now better in Wild also. So the core set's actually affecting a very broad spectrum of our modes, and beyond that as well, there's actually a whole bunch of changes and reverts from cards coming to Wild as well, so there's a pretty hefty list of what's coming. Not all cards… but there's a lot of Wild cards and cards from history that are getting changes and tweaks.”[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=There's%20actually%20a%20whole%20bunch%20of%20changes%20and%20reverts%20from%20cards%20coming%20to%20Wild%20as%20well%2C%20so%20there's%20a%20pretty%20hefty%20list..."]

Adding Spell Schools Into Hearthstone

Ben Lee: “There's some pretty obvious, basic schools out there that are really in your face - Frost and Fire, and I think that's where a lot of this comes from originally. There’s definitely a fantasy of like, ‘I'm a Mage player and I want to build a Frost deck,’ or, ‘I want to build a Fire deck.’ So it starts from that, and I think when we were looking at synergies and combos... We actually really love minion types, and I think that's been really great for Battlegrounds. Minion type is actually a pretty core mechanic in Mercenaries as well. But players respond really well to it, it's just super fun building a team of Murlocs, or whatever the case is in Battlegrounds. “When you think about spell schools, it taps into the same kind of synergies and the same kind of player mindset, ‘I want to be a Fire Mage. I want to be a Warlock that throws Fel magic.’ The big schools that we're really talking about here are Fel, Shadow, Holy, Frost, Fire, and Nature, and Arcane obviously as well. So a lot of it comes from Mages, but there are definitely other classes that dip into it. And also, this actually gives us a chance to really revisit Shadow as a Priest mechanic. Because over the last year or so, there's a large group of Priest players out there that want to be able to not just be the healing and buffing class, they want to do something different. They love their class and they love some of its older identity, and something like this gives us a chance to bring that back to them as well.” Nathan Lyons-Smith: “Yeah, I think the taxonomy is super helpful… and really fits into the theme of, ‘I want to build this type of deck or have this type of experience.’ But it also… give us tools to say, ‘Hey, you can do this kind of thing with this kind of spell.’ And that's not flexibility we've had before, and so I'm really excited. We've carved out this new design space for the designers to go and explore, and see how they can lean into either more power or less power, depending on the spell school and how it gets used. So lots more to do, this is a permanent change and going back to all of the cards, and so I think there's a lot more to come here.”[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=We've%20carved%20out%20this%20new%20design%20space%20for%20the%20designers%20to%20go%20and%20explore%E2%80%A6"]

Spells Without Schools

Ben Lee: “Some spells don't have schools, it's a lot of what you would consider physical spells. Warrior is a great example of this. Let's say you hypothetically have something that creates a taunt minion or something on those lines, it doesn't really fit into a spell school. So a lot of it's inspired by the art actually, if there's a character doing a big Shadow spell in the art, it's a Shadow spell, and in lots of cases, the naming links into that as well. And a lot of the older stuff, it isn't deliberate synergies, we've had to keep that in mind and try and build into that, so it's actually been a really fun exercise. “We're touching a little bit lightly on that in Forged in the Barrens, [but] in the mini-set that's coming, we’re actually hitting it pretty heavily in some of the classes, so I think it's going to be exciting to see. This is a permanent mechanic that we can lean into for the rest of Hearthstone's future, so you can expect there's going to be points in the future where players are going to be referring to decks as the Fire Mage Deck or the Ice Mage Deck. And I think that's cool fantasy the players like.” Exciting times for Hearthstone, and for those of you itching to see all 235 cards, the full core set will be revealed sometime next week. For now though, be sure to read our coverage of Hearthstone’s new expansion, Forged in the Barrens, and new mode, Mercenaries. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=hearthstone-forged-in-the-barrens-reveal-cards&captions=true"] [poilib element="accentDivider"] Cam Shea is IGN's AU Studio Lead and has a serious soft spot for rave era breakbeat . He also played more Breath of the Wild than any other game last year. Catch him on Twitter. Maybe.

With today's announcement of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic proving that Blizzard won't shy away from making its old WoW expansions available anew, the question becomes: how far will Blizzard take Classic? Will we see Wrath of the Lich King Classic next? Speaking to IGN in advance of BlizzCon 2021, executive producer John Hight and lead software engineer Brian Birmingham are clear that what Classic ultimately becomes will be determined by what the Classic community wants -- after all, it was for the community that Classic servers were originally made, and it was also because of strong community that they opted to take the game into The Burning Crusade this year. "We set the stage even when we announced Classic," said Hight. "That was one of the questions I got on that fateful day at BlizzCon. At that point we already had plans, but we did want to see how popular Classic was going to be. And I think we've said it multiple times, but we were completely overwhelmed with how much positive reception we got... not only did they come in droves to play Classic, but they've continued to play, and it's a vibrant community. We brag now that we have the two biggest MMORPGs in PC gaming. Of course we would go to Burning Crusade." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/19/world-of-warcraft-burning-crusade-classic-trailer"] When asked more specifically how far Classic could potentially go, Birmingham affirmed that while Blizzard has nothing to announce for now, a possible Wrath of the Lich King Classic would not be off the table. "We want to hear what the community wants," he said. What people want to see is what we want to do. If people are excited about the next chapters, then we want to hear about that and start talking about it." Hight added, "If we have a good party going we want to keep the party going." The two were also clear that the current plan is for the original World of Warcraft: Classic, sans expansions, to keep existing perpetually as it is -- at a minimum.

"There were people who when we did Classic, asked specifically, 'We want the original version of the game,'" Birmingham said. "And we don't want to take that away from them -- we just gave it to them. So we want to make sure they still have that choice.

 "...What we definitely want to do is make sure that we are being true to people to say that there is something that is Classic and feels like that. Then there's an open question: are there other quality of life changes that make sense to make there as more people move on to Burning Crusade? And we're definitely interested in hearing community feedback about what we should do with that."

Hight added, "We know a lot of people love that [version of] WoW, and they have been willing to level up, play for a while, and start that journey over again. We've certainly kicked around some ideas about how best to engage them and support them in that. As Brian said, we're open to ideas. This is their community too."

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic and details about the 9.1 patch for Shadowlands were leaked yesterday ahead of BlizzCon today, when they were formally announced. We also spoke with Hight and Birmingham about other Burning Crusade Classic details, including planned paid character boosts and cloning services, and changes to Burning Crusade from its original version. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

With today's announcement of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic proving that Blizzard won't shy away from making its old WoW expansions available anew, the question becomes: how far will Blizzard take Classic? Will we see Wrath of the Lich King Classic next? Speaking to IGN in advance of BlizzCon 2021, executive producer John Hight and lead software engineer Brian Birmingham are clear that what Classic ultimately becomes will be determined by what the Classic community wants -- after all, it was for the community that Classic servers were originally made, and it was also because of strong community that they opted to take the game into The Burning Crusade this year. "We set the stage even when we announced Classic," said Hight. "That was one of the questions I got on that fateful day at BlizzCon. At that point we already had plans, but we did want to see how popular Classic was going to be. And I think we've said it multiple times, but we were completely overwhelmed with how much positive reception we got... not only did they come in droves to play Classic, but they've continued to play, and it's a vibrant community. We brag now that we have the two biggest MMORPGs in PC gaming. Of course we would go to Burning Crusade." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/19/world-of-warcraft-burning-crusade-classic-trailer"] When asked more specifically how far Classic could potentially go, Birmingham affirmed that while Blizzard has nothing to announce for now, a possible Wrath of the Lich King Classic would not be off the table. "We want to hear what the community wants," he said. What people want to see is what we want to do. If people are excited about the next chapters, then we want to hear about that and start talking about it." Hight added, "If we have a good party going we want to keep the party going." The two were also clear that the current plan is for the original World of Warcraft: Classic, sans expansions, to keep existing perpetually as it is -- at a minimum.

"There were people who when we did Classic, asked specifically, 'We want the original version of the game,'" Birmingham said. "And we don't want to take that away from them -- we just gave it to them. So we want to make sure they still have that choice.

 "...What we definitely want to do is make sure that we are being true to people to say that there is something that is Classic and feels like that. Then there's an open question: are there other quality of life changes that make sense to make there as more people move on to Burning Crusade? And we're definitely interested in hearing community feedback about what we should do with that."

Hight added, "We know a lot of people love that [version of] WoW, and they have been willing to level up, play for a while, and start that journey over again. We've certainly kicked around some ideas about how best to engage them and support them in that. As Brian said, we're open to ideas. This is their community too."

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic and details about the 9.1 patch for Shadowlands were leaked yesterday ahead of BlizzCon today, when they were formally announced. We also spoke with Hight and Birmingham about other Burning Crusade Classic details, including planned paid character boosts and cloning services, and changes to Burning Crusade from its original version. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Blizzard is launching (well, re-launching, in a sense) its Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft Classic later this year, and it wants to make sure anyone who wants to can participate immediately -- even if they haven't done the hours and hours of grinding required in Classic to get a max level character. Speaking in an interview with IGN ahead of today's BlizzCon 2021 announcements, executive producer John Hight and lead software engineer Brian Birmingham confirmed that Blizzard would offer some way to boost characters to level 58 (the level at which players can access The Burning Crusade content in Outland) for those who wanted to jump right into Burning Crusade without going through all of Classic's content first -- though they weren't specific as to exactly how that boost would be obtained. Hight suggested that while The Burning Crusade would automatically be made available to anyone with a World of Warcraft subscription "one option will also be to be able to get a boost" and that option "may potentially include some other cool stuff" -- effectively hinting at some form of boost other than the usual paid boost available with the retail version of the game. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/18/world-of-warcraft-the-burning-crusade-classic-is-coming-later-this-year-ign-news"] Birmingham said that regardless of how it was obtained, it was important that getting that boost didn't trivialize the accomplishments of Classic players so far. He said Blizzard wants to "honor the sense of accomplishment" that players who had already reached max level in Classic had. To that end, the boost will be limited: only one per World of Warcraft account, characters will be wearing level-appropriate but not overpowered dungeon gear, and the two new races introduces in Burning Crusade -- Draenei and Blood Elves -- cannot be boosted. "We know for a lot of people this was their entry into WoW, and we don't want them to feel like they missed out," Hight said. "I think if we'd had the notion of a boost back then, we definitely would have used it. When we introduced it with Warlords of Draenor we saw a lot of people return to WoW." Character boosting isn't the only Classic character service being added. Birmingham and Hight also elaborated on the process of bringing a character to Burning Crusade, or choosing to keep it in the original Classic. Essentially, Birmingham explained, on launch day there will be two separate game clients in Battle.net: one for Burning Crusade, and one for Classic. When you launch one and select a character, it will ask you to confirm if that's where you want that character to be, and then you'll lock it in. The choice is per character, so different characters can go to whichever version of the game players want. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/19/world-of-warcraft-burning-crusade-classic-trailer"] But what if players want to play one character in both versions? Blizzard has accounted for that, and will be offering a paid service (the amount has yet to be announced) that will let players clone characters across both games.

"We want to make sure that you're making a meaningful choice, that you're actually making a decision of where you want to continue your adventuring, but we know that some people would prefer not to make that choice so we're developing this new service for that," Birmingham said.

Hight added, "It should be a conscious choice. If we just automatically did it, we could potentially be creating a bunch of characters that are there but nobody's actually playing. It's introducing a little bit of friction to make sure this is really what you want to do."

Hight added that, based on player feedback and surveys, he expects most players will want to move on to The Burning Crusade -- but Classic will be kept alive indefinitely for those who want to stay in that community. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic and details about the 9.1 patch for Shadowlands were leaked yesterday and formally announced today at BlizzCon 2021. IGN also spoke with Hight and Birmingham about other Burning Crusade Classic details, including potential plans for a Wrath of the Lich King Classic release in the future, and changes to Burning Crusade from its original version. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Blizzard is launching (well, re-launching, in a sense) its Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft Classic later this year, and it wants to make sure anyone who wants to can participate immediately -- even if they haven't done the hours and hours of grinding required in Classic to get a max level character. Speaking in an interview with IGN ahead of today's BlizzCon 2021 announcements, executive producer John Hight and lead software engineer Brian Birmingham confirmed that Blizzard would offer some way to boost characters to level 58 (the level at which players can access The Burning Crusade content in Outland) for those who wanted to jump right into Burning Crusade without going through all of Classic's content first -- though they weren't specific as to exactly how that boost would be obtained. Hight suggested that while The Burning Crusade would automatically be made available to anyone with a World of Warcraft subscription "one option will also be to be able to get a boost" and that option "may potentially include some other cool stuff" -- effectively hinting at some form of boost other than the usual paid boost available with the retail version of the game. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/18/world-of-warcraft-the-burning-crusade-classic-is-coming-later-this-year-ign-news"] Birmingham said that regardless of how it was obtained, it was important that getting that boost didn't trivialize the accomplishments of Classic players so far. He said Blizzard wants to "honor the sense of accomplishment" that players who had already reached max level in Classic had. To that end, the boost will be limited: only one per World of Warcraft account, characters will be wearing level-appropriate but not overpowered dungeon gear, and the two new races introduces in Burning Crusade -- Draenei and Blood Elves -- cannot be boosted. "We know for a lot of people this was their entry into WoW, and we don't want them to feel like they missed out," Hight said. "I think if we'd had the notion of a boost back then, we definitely would have used it. When we introduced it with Warlords of Draenor we saw a lot of people return to WoW." Character boosting isn't the only Classic character service being added. Birmingham and Hight also elaborated on the process of bringing a character to Burning Crusade, or choosing to keep it in the original Classic. Essentially, Birmingham explained, on launch day there will be two separate game clients in Battle.net: one for Burning Crusade, and one for Classic. When you launch one and select a character, it will ask you to confirm if that's where you want that character to be, and then you'll lock it in. The choice is per character, so different characters can go to whichever version of the game players want. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/19/world-of-warcraft-burning-crusade-classic-trailer"] But what if players want to play one character in both versions? Blizzard has accounted for that, and will be offering a paid service (the amount has yet to be announced) that will let players clone characters across both games.

"We want to make sure that you're making a meaningful choice, that you're actually making a decision of where you want to continue your adventuring, but we know that some people would prefer not to make that choice so we're developing this new service for that," Birmingham said.

Hight added, "It should be a conscious choice. If we just automatically did it, we could potentially be creating a bunch of characters that are there but nobody's actually playing. It's introducing a little bit of friction to make sure this is really what you want to do."

Hight added that, based on player feedback and surveys, he expects most players will want to move on to The Burning Crusade -- but Classic will be kept alive indefinitely for those who want to stay in that community. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic and details about the 9.1 patch for Shadowlands were leaked yesterday and formally announced today at BlizzCon 2021. IGN also spoke with Hight and Birmingham about other Burning Crusade Classic details, including potential plans for a Wrath of the Lich King Classic release in the future, and changes to Burning Crusade from its original version. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

When it released World of Warcraft: Classic, Blizzard's goal was to stay as true to the original World of Warcraft experience as was feasible. And while that's still true for Burning Crusade, they...might be loosening up just a little.

Speaking to IGN ahead of the announcement of The Burning Crusade Classic at BlizzCon 2021 today, lead software engineer Brian Birmingham said that the team was trying to be a touch more flexible with how they approached Burning Crusade, to both give players a broader experience, as well as a better-tuned one.

"One of the things that we're trying to do is move just a little bit more off of what we used to call, 'No Changes,'" he said. "There was a big push in the community [with Classic] to make sure that we really were going to be true to the original. And I think we really did a good job of delivering on that with Classic. We do want to back off just a little bit [with Burning Crusade], and we're kind of calling this, 'Some Changes.' We don't want it to be dramatic."

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/18/world-of-warcraft-the-burning-crusade-classic-is-coming-later-this-year-ign-news"]

Birmingham offered a few examples. For one, several bosses were bugfixed or nerfed in Burning Crusade, but players might be interested in trying their hand at fights in their far more challenging forms. For instance, Lady Vashj -- the final encounter in Serpentshrine Cavern -- was incredibly difficult to kill when she was first released, before a nerf made her more reasonable. But Blizzard will let her launch in her pre-nerf form so guilds that want a challenge can try their hand at that, before eventually bringing the nerf into effect.

The same goes for the M'uru fight in Sunwell, though Birmingham says that not everything about M'uru will be as it was when it was first released. M'uru received nerfs to both its health as well as a spell pushback ability that was devastating to guilds trying to kill it. The spell pushback ability difficulty will not be reinstated, but M'uru will release with its initial high health pool.

Another interesting change Birmingham specifics is to Paladins, which are present in Classic but were added to the Horde in Burning Crusade. When that happened, Horde Paladins were given an ability called Seal of Blood, while Alliance Paladins received Seal of Vengeance. The abilities, Birmingham said, were intended to be equal in power but distinct -- but that didn't quite pan out, as Seal of Blood was far more powerful. So with Burning Crusade Classic, both factions will learn the opposite faction's version of the Seal at level 70.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/19/world-of-warcraft-burning-crusade-classic-trailer"]

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic and details about the 9.1 patch for Shadowlands, Chains of Domination, were announced today at BlizzCon 2021. IGN also spoke with Hight and Birmingham about other Burning Crusade Classic features and changes, including potential plans for a Wrath of the Lich King Classic release in the future, and plans for character boosts and paid character cloning services to go with the Burning Crusade launch.

The Burning Crusade Classic launches later this year.

[poilib element="accentDivider"]

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

When it released World of Warcraft: Classic, Blizzard's goal was to stay as true to the original World of Warcraft experience as was feasible. And while that's still true for Burning Crusade, they...might be loosening up just a little.

Speaking to IGN ahead of the announcement of The Burning Crusade Classic at BlizzCon 2021 today, lead software engineer Brian Birmingham said that the team was trying to be a touch more flexible with how they approached Burning Crusade, to both give players a broader experience, as well as a better-tuned one.

"One of the things that we're trying to do is move just a little bit more off of what we used to call, 'No Changes,'" he said. "There was a big push in the community [with Classic] to make sure that we really were going to be true to the original. And I think we really did a good job of delivering on that with Classic. We do want to back off just a little bit [with Burning Crusade], and we're kind of calling this, 'Some Changes.' We don't want it to be dramatic."

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/18/world-of-warcraft-the-burning-crusade-classic-is-coming-later-this-year-ign-news"]

Birmingham offered a few examples. For one, several bosses were bugfixed or nerfed in Burning Crusade, but players might be interested in trying their hand at fights in their far more challenging forms. For instance, Lady Vashj -- the final encounter in Serpentshrine Cavern -- was incredibly difficult to kill when she was first released, before a nerf made her more reasonable. But Blizzard will let her launch in her pre-nerf form so guilds that want a challenge can try their hand at that, before eventually bringing the nerf into effect.

The same goes for the M'uru fight in Sunwell, though Birmingham says that not everything about M'uru will be as it was when it was first released. M'uru received nerfs to both its health as well as a spell pushback ability that was devastating to guilds trying to kill it. The spell pushback ability difficulty will not be reinstated, but M'uru will release with its initial high health pool.

Another interesting change Birmingham specifics is to Paladins, which are present in Classic but were added to the Horde in Burning Crusade. When that happened, Horde Paladins were given an ability called Seal of Blood, while Alliance Paladins received Seal of Vengeance. The abilities, Birmingham said, were intended to be equal in power but distinct -- but that didn't quite pan out, as Seal of Blood was far more powerful. So with Burning Crusade Classic, both factions will learn the opposite faction's version of the Seal at level 70.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/19/world-of-warcraft-burning-crusade-classic-trailer"]

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic and details about the 9.1 patch for Shadowlands, Chains of Domination, were announced today at BlizzCon 2021. IGN also spoke with Hight and Birmingham about other Burning Crusade Classic features and changes, including potential plans for a Wrath of the Lich King Classic release in the future, and plans for character boosts and paid character cloning services to go with the Burning Crusade launch.

The Burning Crusade Classic launches later this year.

[poilib element="accentDivider"]

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

In World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, players get to choose to join one of four different Covenants, which dictates much of the storyline (and many of the characters) they interact with as they explore the world of the dead. But with patch 9.1, that's all about to change. Speaking to IGN ahead of BlizzCon 2021, senior game designer Jeremy Feasel and technical director Frank Kowalkowski said that Patch 9.1 sees players working to unite the four covenants, bringing them together as a collective army to launch a strike against the Jailer on his home turf: the Maw. Shadowlands patch 9.1, Chains of Domination, was revealed today at BlizzCon, and centers the lost city of Korthia -- which the Jailer grabs out of the Maw and smashes into the rest of the landmass players have explored so far. Much of Chains of Domination will take place in Korthia and the Maw at large, with new Covenant hubs in the Maw, ways to cleanse the Jailer's oppressive influence, and yes -- the ability to summon player mounts in the Maw, where previously they were unable to do so. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/19/world-of-warcraft-shadowlands-chains-of-domination-trailer"] Uniting the Covenants isn't just a storyline choice. Feasel said that with 9.1, players will not only be doing most of the same content together, but they'll also be able to follow the storylines of Covenants they haven't joined, as well as receive story catch-ups to see what's been going on in other zones. "It was wanting to get across that feeling of the covenants really coming together, it doesn't make sense for us to go off and deal with problems in our own home zone anymore," Feasel said. "But then also, it allows us to show to every single one of the players, even players who may not play multiple characters, what's been going on in some of the zones, and that helps us with our storytelling. Once everyone's caught up with what's going on, what's happening in the world, it allows us take-off points from any of the four zone storylines." It will also be much easier to navigate the four Covenant zones, they said, because flying will be implemented in all four with the new patch. And, good news: there's no reputation grind this time. If players have been keeping up with their Covenant story progression so far, they say it shouldn't take long at all to unlock it -- though still no flying allowed in the Maw, sorry. Feasel added that there will still be things that make Covenants feel distinct to players, including extra storylines or "scene-lets" that only players of that Covenant will see. The merging of Covenant storylines and ease of crossover begs the question: what if players want to change Covenants? The Covenant system was criticized heavily in the lead-up to launch due to players not wanting to feel restricted to one Covenant, especially if later changes to the game made a certain Covenant more or less ideal for more hardcore players. Feasel said that while there's nothing specific to announce for now, the time between major patches is about the time Blizzard expects to see players experiment with other Covenants, and the teams will be listening to feedback from players who do swap to make sure they feel that changing Covenants isn't too painful for them. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/27/world-of-warcraft-shadowlands-bastion-story-trailer"] Covenants, Korthia, and storylines aren't the only new elements coming in 9.1. There's a new 10-boss raid, the Sanctum of Domination, where players will take on Sylvanas Windrunner at last as the final boss -- though Feasel said no return of Tier gear...for now. "We really like the idea, we don't have anything to announce today, but it's definitely on our list when we find a time that feels right," he said. And Kowalkowski confirmed there's more. There will be"at least one new wing" added to Torghast, possibly more. Feasel added that Blizzard is looking at adjustments to the rogue-like challenge's rewards, suggesting the "everything or nothing" approach currently available probably needs adjusting. "We want it to feel like you can achieve a bit more incremental progression," he said, and continued that Blizzard wants players who like the content but don't need the rewards to still feel they get something from it. We'll also see an eight-boss mega-dungeon themed around the Brokers called Tazavesh, the Veiled Market, and at some point encounter this real messed-up version of Anduin Wrynn, corrupted somehow by Sylvanas and despair. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic and details about the 9.1 patch for Shadowlands were leaked yesterday ahead of BlizzCon today, when they were formally announced. We also spoke with John Hight and Brian Birmingham ahead of the event about a number of Burning Crusade Classic details, including planned character boosts and paid cloning services, a potential future Wrath of the Lich King Classic release and changes to Burning Crusade from its original version. [poilib element="accentDivider"]

In World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, players get to choose to join one of four different Covenants, which dictates much of the storyline (and many of the characters) they interact with as they explore the world of the dead. But with patch 9.1, that's all about to change. Speaking to IGN ahead of BlizzCon 2021, senior game designer Jeremy Feasel and technical director Frank Kowalkowski said that Patch 9.1 sees players working to unite the four covenants, bringing them together as a collective army to launch a strike against the Jailer on his home turf: the Maw. Shadowlands patch 9.1, Chains of Domination, was revealed today at BlizzCon, and centers the lost city of Korthia -- which the Jailer grabs out of the Maw and smashes into the rest of the landmass players have explored so far. Much of Chains of Domination will take place in Korthia and the Maw at large, with new Covenant hubs in the Maw, ways to cleanse the Jailer's oppressive influence, and yes -- the ability to summon player mounts in the Maw, where previously they were unable to do so. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/19/world-of-warcraft-shadowlands-chains-of-domination-trailer"] Uniting the Covenants isn't just a storyline choice. Feasel said that with 9.1, players will not only be doing most of the same content together, but they'll also be able to follow the storylines of Covenants they haven't joined, as well as receive story catch-ups to see what's been going on in other zones. "It was wanting to get across that feeling of the covenants really coming together, it doesn't make sense for us to go off and deal with problems in our own home zone anymore," Feasel said. "But then also, it allows us to show to every single one of the players, even players who may not play multiple characters, what's been going on in some of the zones, and that helps us with our storytelling. Once everyone's caught up with what's going on, what's happening in the world, it allows us take-off points from any of the four zone storylines." It will also be much easier to navigate the four Covenant zones, they said, because flying will be implemented in all four with the new patch. And, good news: there's no reputation grind this time. If players have been keeping up with their Covenant story progression so far, they say it shouldn't take long at all to unlock it -- though still no flying allowed in the Maw, sorry. Feasel added that there will still be things that make Covenants feel distinct to players, including extra storylines or "scene-lets" that only players of that Covenant will see. The merging of Covenant storylines and ease of crossover begs the question: what if players want to change Covenants? The Covenant system was criticized heavily in the lead-up to launch due to players not wanting to feel restricted to one Covenant, especially if later changes to the game made a certain Covenant more or less ideal for more hardcore players. Feasel said that while there's nothing specific to announce for now, the time between major patches is about the time Blizzard expects to see players experiment with other Covenants, and the teams will be listening to feedback from players who do swap to make sure they feel that changing Covenants isn't too painful for them. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/27/world-of-warcraft-shadowlands-bastion-story-trailer"] Covenants, Korthia, and storylines aren't the only new elements coming in 9.1. There's a new 10-boss raid, the Sanctum of Domination, where players will take on Sylvanas Windrunner at last as the final boss -- though Feasel said no return of Tier gear...for now. "We really like the idea, we don't have anything to announce today, but it's definitely on our list when we find a time that feels right," he said. And Kowalkowski confirmed there's more. There will be"at least one new wing" added to Torghast, possibly more. Feasel added that Blizzard is looking at adjustments to the rogue-like challenge's rewards, suggesting the "everything or nothing" approach currently available probably needs adjusting. "We want it to feel like you can achieve a bit more incremental progression," he said, and continued that Blizzard wants players who like the content but don't need the rewards to still feel they get something from it. We'll also see an eight-boss mega-dungeon themed around the Brokers called Tazavesh, the Veiled Market, and at some point encounter this real messed-up version of Anduin Wrynn, corrupted somehow by Sylvanas and despair. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic and details about the 9.1 patch for Shadowlands were leaked yesterday ahead of BlizzCon today, when they were formally announced. We also spoke with John Hight and Brian Birmingham ahead of the event about a number of Burning Crusade Classic details, including planned character boosts and paid cloning services, a potential future Wrath of the Lich King Classic release and changes to Burning Crusade from its original version. [poilib element="accentDivider"]