Hearthstone’s new auto battler mode is now available for everyone

The new Battlegrounds mode in Hearthstone is now available for everyone. The open beta starts this week, as promised. There’s no formal announcement as to when it will end.

Players can access the open beta right away. All you need to do it log in, and you’ll be presented with an option to give it a try under the Modes menu. There are also challenges linked to playing the mode.

Announced at this year’s BlizzCon, the Battlegrounds mode pits eight players against one another. You can check out the official description on the game’s blog. We got some hands-time with it at this year’s convention, and came away pleasantly surprised. From our preview:

Blizzard Entertainment via Polygon

The auto battler genre is one of the newest of this decade. So far, most auto battlers, like Teamfight Tactics and Dota Underlords, rely on player’s knowledge and interest in existing games. Hearthstone’s will also rely on the game’s inherent conductibility as an online CCG — another new genre that also sprung to life in the 2010s.

Hearthstone itself began with a closed beta in 2013, before launching into an open beta the following year. The full release came in March 2014. Unlike that phase of the game, however, the beta for Battlegrounds is available on iOS and Android devices. So you don’t need to have the PC version of the collectible card game loaded up to get into the action.