Next Hearthstone expansion will include over 100 new cards

Blizzard has said that it hopes to offer over 100 new cards when it rolls out its next expansion to free-to-play card game Hearthstone.

"I think we’re going to mix it up a little bit with this next release," production director Jason Chayes told Polygon. "It will have a lot more cards. We’re talking about more than 100. We are going to have a central theme for how that will all fit together. That’ll be the next thing coming up."

"One of the things that we spend a lot of time talking about is pacing. Not just the pacing of the game as it is, but pacing of the rollout of new content. We really want to make sure the pacing is great not just for seasoned Hearthstone players but for new players coming into the game too.

"We really want to pay attention to how that is for the entirety of the player base. Does that feel like the right amount of content? Is it too little? Is it too much? We feel like this is a good starting point."

Chayes added that while new game modes remains a possibility, such a change is not something being planned for the near future. Nor is the studio concerned that an increase to the number of cards could force them to implement restirctions to maintain balance.

"We have done some initial conversations about at what point will that be a concern for us," he said. "We think we have a ways before we have to worry about something like that, because there’s a lot of design space to experiment with ideas…. But that could be something that we need to be thinking about for Hearthstone down the road.

"If we do reach that point because there are just that many cards in the available set, one of the things we definitely want to make sure of is that there are ways to continue playing with all of your cards, and that it feels really good to be participating in these various modes."