Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft headed to China from Blizzard and NetEase

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment's free-to-play strategy card game, is headed to China thanks to a partnership between Blizzard and NetEase, the companies announced today.

The three-year license will bring the game to mainland China and is the latest collaboration between the companies since they first partnered in 2008. Over the years, the partnership also brought Battle.net, StarCraft 2 and World of Warcraft to the Chinese market.

"We are very excited to be bringing a new game to China from Blizzard, and we believe Hearthstone will be a hit with gamers here," said NetEase CEO and founder William Ding. "We're working closely with Blizzard to prepare everything needed for launching Hearthstone in China, and we look forward to providing players with another great gaming experience."

Blizzard announced the Windows PC, Mac and iOS game during its PAX East panel in late March 2013. You can watch the game's card-based duels in a trailer from April and learn more from Polygon's interview with production director Jason Chayes.