Blizzard has finally unveiled the newest mode for Hearthstone Battleground, and it’s something that fans have been wanting for a very long time. Dubbed Hearthstone Battlegounds Duo’s, this mode allows not one, but two people to play via a special co-op mode where teams of two vs two take on each other with some new features to boot. This includes being able to swap cards with each other for the cost of one gold, and a ping system allowing you to tell your teammate what move you want them to go with. We, and several other writers from other publications, sat down with Hearthstone Battlegounds Duo’s Senior Game Designer Mitchell Loewen and Associate Game Designer Jia Dee who went over what went into the process of making this new and exciting mode.
There was a lot to take in from so many questions being asked, but one of the biggest aspects taken away from this is that it’s something that both Mitchell and Jia are intensely passionate about.
Loewen: The origin is actually kind of interesting. People on the [development] team have repeatedly wanted to have a cooperative mode for players for a really long time. We had been trying and we couldn’t quite find something that resonated. One of the things that we do periodically do is ‘free grind’ which gives different people on the team opportunities to explore things that they’re interested in and passionate about all around the game. A couple of people on the team were like ‘we’re going to make a Duos prototype.’ So they spend their free grind building their initial prototype up. People played it and went ‘this is awesome, we really want this to be real, we want to launch this.’ Once everyone got a chance to try that demo we decided let’s turn this into a real content update.
Dee: I was one of the people that said ‘this was awesome.’ Just wanted to let that out there.
Loewen and Dee explain that players will be able to queue into a Duos match with or without a partner, making the it more associable.
Loewen: Yes, you will have the ability to queue as a pair, so you and a partner, or if you don’t have someone that you wanna queue with, you will be paired with someone with a similar skill level.
Dee: Also wanted to clarify that you’ll be able to queue in the solo Battlegrounds separately than Duos. It’s not a like that system, you’ll have two entry points that you can choose which.
When asked if this new mode will be a great way for new players to break into the Battlegrounds title itself, Dee said that it would easily be an excellent entry mode.
Dee: Absolutely. I think it’s extremely fun. I’ve already heard stories of people on the show floor saying like ‘I’ve played this mode but my friend hasn’t and since we’re here together I’ll just bring them in.’ You can queue up by yourself and and the friend but I think it’s largely incentivized because we’re saying it’s a duos mode, where you can talk to somebody and make a new friend. I think it’s one of the main reasons that we’re pushing the mode, to have that ability to socialize.
Loewen: Just to build onto that a little bit, I have a lot of experiences with board games, it’s where most of my background came from. What I found is one of the best ways to teach people how to play any game is be a friend. It’s one of the most excellent ways in my experience. What I found is a lot of times, even though I work on the game and I know it inside and out, with friends it’s kind of tricky to get them into it, it’s intimidating and their first time experience. If I can be in the game with them then we’re having this fun together, it’s so much easier for them to learn because then you get that shared enthusiasm, you get that shared excitement, and you help each other out. There’s lots of ways, regardless of what skill level people are playing, you can find lot’s of people to help, and they end up feeling good about it.
Loewen goes into a crazy idea that the team tried, only for them to quickly realize that it wouldn’t be possible to keep in the final product.
Loewen: Probably the wildest idea that we tried was you share everything. All your gold, all your cards, everything is shared, and it was so chaotic. Because then it would be like ‘Oh I’m gonna tier up’ and your teammates spent your gold already so you can’t tier up. Maybe there’s something there for us to explore in the future, who knows? It was a pretty hilarious experience. I think it’s really fun to try, I’m super excited for Duos there’s a lot space that gets opened up. I feel like the heroes in the demo right now are really only scratching the surface. I’m super excited to explore this thing and bring in a lot of really weird and interesting heroes.
Loewen also went into a specific scenario, what happens if your partner suddenly drops out?
Loewen: There’s definitely been a lot of talks around there. I don’t think we’ve quite settled on what we’d do, but that is a topic that we’ve been discussing a lot, and that’s something that has to be considered. There’s a lot of reasons why someone would be dropping like a connection issue or ‘oh shoot I can’t play I gotta go bye!’ You know sometimes life happens so we definitely want to make sure that if you’re the person who’s stuck there and you don’t have your partner anymore there’s a good solid solution for you.
One of the last topics that was brought up was easily one of the most important ones. Will Duos have an intro song for it’s trailer, like all of it’s Hearthstone counterparts? For now, it’s still up in the air.
Dee: We have not thought about that but that’s a great idea!
Loewen: I would love a song! (laughs) I don’t know if that means there’s going to do it, but I would want a song.
Dee: We’re like legally obligated to make it duet now. (both laugh)
Loewen: Unfortunately that’s not really our call, but I can definitely pass the feedback on and say he a duet sounds cool! But I obviously can’t make any promises.
Hearthstone Battlegrounds Duos is slated to launch early 2024.