With the introduction of the Death Knight class, Hearthstone is taking players down Arthas Menethil’s dark path.
The story of arthas is the greatest Warcraft story ever told it is so Essential to everything that transpires In World of Warcraft because it is that Sort of like essential narrative at the Heart of Warcraft 3 Way Way Back in the Day there's got to be some other way Damn it Uther as your future king I Order you to purge this city so for Anyone who remembers those old games who Loves the warcraft franchise art this is Such a key part of that so it's really Exciting to be able to kind of tell his Story in full here finally in Hearthstone for the first time Jaina I'm sorry arthas I can't watch you do This One of the things that we noticed in the Last couple of years working on the Games that we'd we'd had a slight Different tone that we shifted to a Couple years ago starting with forged in The Barons more serious more true to the Roots of Warcraft and players really Responded to that well so the wacky zany Stuff that Hearthstone is known for is Not going away but we knew that as we Were going to be dealing with the Lich King and arthas some pretty serious Subject matter that we were going to try To play it straight and so we wanted to Tell a story that felt epic that felt Dangerous and really highlighted the
Power of the scourge and so that's how We settled on this sort of invasion of Silver Moon this is a real event that Transpired in the history of Warcraft And we really wanted to be able like I Think I think the way it started was There's so many ways in Hearthstone to Tell stories it might not seem like it At first right it's a card game these Little pictures right but what we Actually have is a ton of different ways To express narrative some of it's Through the cards and gameplay you look At the Rune types of the new death Knight class and each one really sells The flavor so that when you're a blood Death knight it feels like you're this Grindy strong immovable object when You're Unholy it feels like you're Sending this swarm of ghouls after your Enemy Serve your king So tapping into that just the feeling of It alone is evocative of like the the Lore of the death knight and then within The card art itself you see key moments From the story depicted in spell art or Iconic characters and minions flavor Text also is a way that you can inject More story and a lot more puns those are Important and then single player content So as part of the release of March the Lich King we're going to be introducing A new free death knight prologue which
Tells the story of arthas battling some Of the most iconic characters in Warcraft's history in Hearthstone Getting to try out a bunch of these new Decks and strategies that you'll get to Use upon completion of the prologue In terms of the story arthas was the Prince of lordaeron one of the great Human kingdoms of Azeroth an evil demon Sort of destroyed one of his cities he Was you know heartbroken over this Tortured he felt guilt that these people Had suffered and died and so he set out On this quest for revenge and would stop At nothing to get it he ended up taking This sword called frostmour and this Cursed blade that damaged his soul and Gave him the death Knight's Powers but At the expense of whatever lingering Morality he may have had so he had to Sort of sell his soul in order to get The Revenge he wanted and then absolute Power corrupts absolutely he eventually Descends into this evil monstrous Character called the Lich King who's one Of the most powerful beings in Azeroth And that's sort of where we in the Prologue right when when you get to now Okay now I'm the Lich King and I'm gonna Go Crush that lame priest player on the Ladder My apologies One of the things that's been really Great about working on the prologue is
That the characters that feature Prominently in arthas's story are Characters like Uther and Sylvanas and Illidan right it's people who any Hearthstone player even if you know Nothing about Warcraft is well I know Who Illidan is right so having that as a Touchstone has been really great that The World of Warcraft and Hearthstone Are so very closely connected already so It should feel like a lot of familiar Ground even if you're not familiar with The story it's one of the great things About getting death knight into the game Is that now we have this character who's So important to so many other characters In Warcraft finally sort of taking their Place in the pantheon of hearthstone Heroes Hmm
