Hearthstone
Digital collectible card game by Blizzard Entertainment
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| July 28 2024 | At ChinaJoy 2024, Executive Producer Nathan Lyons-Smith announced Hearthstone's return to China on September 25, 2024, with returning players receiving golden card copies and in-game rewards. |
| April 16 2024 | Duels multiplayer mode was removed from the game. |
| June 27 2023 | Classic mode was removed and replaced with the Twist format. |
| April 7 2023 | Blizzard announced that Mercenaries mode would no longer receive content updates, though it remains accessible with occasional bug fixes and balance updates. |
| January 23 2023 | Players in China lost access to Hearthstone due to the expiration of NetEase server license agreement. |
| 2021 | Blizzard began releasing smaller mini-sets among the three yearly expansions, featuring a few dozen cards centered around specific themes as a replacement for Adventures. |
| October 2021 | Mercenaries mode was introduced, focusing on a party-based combat system with roguelike mechanics where players create a party of six minions and complete various quests. |
| 2020 | Blizzard began viewing Hearthstone as a platform for multiple game modes, with internal 'strike teams' working simultaneously on different aspects of the game. |
| October 22 2020 | Duels multiplayer mode was launched, allowing players to select unique heroes, hero powers, and signature cards to battle until winning or losing a set number of matches. |
| 2019 | Seventh Hearthstone World Championship won by Japanese player Kenta 'Glory' Sato, who received $200,000. |
| November 2019 | First Hearthstone Grandmasters Global Finals at BlizzCon. Chinese player Xiaomeng 'VKLiooon' Li won $200,000, becoming the first woman to win a Hearthstone World Championship. |
| November 2019 | Blizzard introduced Battlegrounds mode, an auto battler genre game mode where eight players compete by recruiting minions over several rounds. |
| July 2019 | Several cards underwent artwork changes to be less graphically violent and sexualized, as part of an artistic refinement initiative. |
| April 2019 | Fifth Hearthstone World Championship held in Taipei. Norwegian player Casper 'Hunterace' Notto won $250,000. |
| 2018 | Hearthstone was part of the Asian Games as an esports demonstration event. |
| January 2018 | Fourth Hearthstone World Championship held in Amsterdam with a $1 million prize pool. Taiwanese player Chen 'tom60229' Wei Lin won $250,000. |
| 2017 | Hearthstone was part of the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games as an esports demonstration event. |
| 2017 | Began the 'Year of the Mammoth', which focused on expansions around new card sets and moved away from the original Adventure format. |
| March 2017 | Hearthstone remained the fourth-most watched game on Twitch, nearly matching Dota 2 in streaming hours. |
| December 2016 | Dropped the 'Heroes of Warcraft' subtitle from the game's name to demonstrate that Hearthstone was no longer strictly tied to the Warcraft narrative. |
| November 5 2016 | Third Hearthstone World Championship held at BlizzCon. Russian player Pavel Beltiukov won $250,000. |
| April 2016 | Blizzard reported 50 million unique Hearthstone players and saw record numbers of simultaneous players during the Journey to Un'Goro expansion launch. |
| April 2016 | Introduction of Standard vs. Wild formats, which addressed game accessibility and meta-game balance by creating separate play modes for different card sets. |
| November 7 2015 | Second Hearthstone World Championship held at BlizzCon. Swedish player Sebastian 'Ostkaka' Engwall won $100,000. |
| September 2015 | Hearthstone-based streams overtook Dota 2 streams to become the third-most watched game on Twitch. |
| June 2015 | Tavern Brawl mode was released after over a year of development, providing an experimental gameplay mode with unique mechanics. |
| May 6 2015 | Activision Blizzard announced Hearthstone's revenue generation alongside Destiny. |
| January 2015 | Hearthstone reached over 25 million registered players, with approximately eight million PC players and nine million mobile device players. |
| November 7 2014 | First Hearthstone World Championship held at BlizzCon. American player James 'Firebat' Kostesich won $100,000. |
| April 2014 | Blizzard announced the first Hearthstone World Championship to be held at BlizzCon in November, featuring players from four regions with a total prize pool of $250,000. |
| April 2014 | Cross-platform play was added, allowing players to play Hearthstone across different devices like PC and iPad. |
| March 2014 | Tespa announced the Collegiate Hearthstone Open, a free tournament for North American college students with $5,000 in scholarships. |
| November 2013 | Blizzard hosted 'The Innkeeper's Invitational' exhibition tournament featuring well-known gamers like Dan 'Artosis' Stemkoski, Octavian 'Kripparrian' Morosan, Jeffrey 'TrumpSC' Shih, and Byron 'Reckful' Bernstein. Artosis won the best-of-five tournament. |
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