Hearthstone’s senior game designer discusses the dark side of new content

Hearthstone is a pretty successful game with four expansions under its belt, yet every single expansion has an interesting danger hanging over its head. A new video from senior game designer Ben Brode discusses the dark side of adding new content to the game. New players find the game that much harder to get into, with far more cards to collect and sort through, while veteran players see the game adding more powerful cards and can feel old cards become obsolete as power creep infests the game.

Brode explains that the threat of power creep is a real one that the designers are aware of, but while making constantly more powerful cards with each expansion is an unwelcome state of affairs, the game also needs powerful new cards to shake up the metagame. While the video doesn’t have any easy answers for these problems, it’s worth watching to see a developer outline the issues and examine the difficult balancing act in designing and releasing new cards.