Blizzard announces Hearthstone Battlegrounds, a new autobattler set in the Warcraft Universe

A new autobattler is coming to the Hearthstone Battlegrounds, Blizzard announced during the BlizzCon opening ceremony on Friday afternoon. The game will be set in the Warcraft universe and feature units and characters from the world, just like Hearthstone.

Like most autobattlers, Blizzard’s game will task you and seven other players with buying from a random selection of units in order to build a suitable army. You can upgrade your units by matching three of the same type together. You can also get extra bonuses based on similarities within your army for things like have three orcs, or two hunters.

Hearthstone Battlegrounds will also bring a unique twist to the autobattler genre with the addition of Heroes. At the start of each new game each player will be able to select a Hero with a unique power that you can structure your team of units to take advantage of. Hearthstone Battlegrounds will launch with 24 different Heroes.

Autobattlers gain popularity last year with the release of the Auto Chess mod for Dota 2. They picked up even more steam this year when Riot released Teamfight Tactics, a League of Legends themed autobattler, that became an instant sensation.

Blizzard wasn’t able to give any details about when this Warcraft-themed autobattler Hearthstone Battlegrounds would be released. However, the developer did mention that it expects to be able to show players a little bit of the game in a beta that starts on Nov. 12. Holders of the BlizzCon 2019 Virtual Ticket can play the game a little earlier starting on Tuesday, Nov. 5.