Well everyone, the Hearthstone developers are really trolling us this time around, and I am pretty happy they are because the new troll-centered expansion, Rastakhan?s Rumble seems to be quite fun. And judging from my interview at BlizzCon 2018 today with designer Peter Whalen, Senior Game Designer, and Cat Morgan, Software Engineer, there?s a lot of genuine enthusiasm about the theme of the upcoming expansion.

For those who didn?t catch the announcement yesterday, Rastakhan?s Rumble will put players in the once-in-a-generation event to honor King Rastakhan, the god-king of the Zandalari trolls. To celebrate, trolls will try to take each other down in the Gurubashi Arena. This expansion will add a new key word, Overkill, and feels quite coherent thematically. Both Peter and Cat are very excited about trolls, with Cat pointing out that trolls were a theme Hearthstone has been wanting to explore for quite some time but the time wasn?t right. Peter pointed out that the team wanted to do something that?s tied with what?s happening in World of Warcaft now (the Battle of Azeroth expansion is exploring the world of Rastakhan and his trolls), and that the theme of having the Loa have each their own teams was very cool. There will be common characters in Hearthstone and World of Warcraft, but we will also see characters unique to Hearthstone.
Peter talked about how powerful the theme is for this expansion, with the nine teams that derive their powers from the Loa, and how the...