Mercenaries will receive a Mythic update with Patch 25.4 introducing a boss rush endgame, which will serve as the final major content update for the mode. The problem-plagued game mode never got off the ground, marking the second time Blizzard failed to re-catch the lightning in the bottle that was Battlegrounds.
The upcoming update will bring significant changes to the mode—but it’s going to be the last real content patch. Six new Mercenaries, the introduction of dual-type characters, and the addition of Factions serve as the main additions from the playable character side of things.
The main gameplay addition is the WoW-like Mythic Boss Rush, the endgame content Mercenaries has been sorely lacking up to this point. It is formulated as weekly content, with new such bounties unlocked every day throughout the week before everything gets reset. You will be rewarded with Renown for your success, which you will be able to use to upgrade your Mercenaries’ abilities beyond their maximum level—but only for the purposes of these runs.
This bit of endgame content also marks the endgame of the mode as a whole. The blog post describes the matter as such:
“After these updates, we will be focusing on making the Hearthstone and Battlegrounds modes the best they can be. At the same time, Mercenaries will continue to get support for bug fixes and periodic balance changes as needed, but no further regular content updates. With the new additions in this patch, we hope that Mercenaries will be a fun, fulfilling mode for players.”
Mercenaries was stuck in development hell for a long while, and the eventually released product was widely seen as a disappointment by the core Hearthstone audience. Community members and content creators found the mode confusing and difficult to explain, the gameplay was extremely repetitive while forcing exorbitant amounts of grinding for a chance to meaningfully compete on the PvP ladder.
The mode also launched without many necessary features. Players were stuck with excess coins (the currency used to upgrade your Mercenaries) for many months after maxing out their stats, and had no meaningful endgame content to explore in PvE until now, a year and a half after the mode’s official launch on Oct. 12, 2021.
This was the developer team’s second attempt at replicating the runaway success of Battlegrounds as part of a vision to treat Hearthstone as a wider game hub for the future. Neither Duels nor Mercenaries came anywhere close to the successes of their autobattler offering, and the entirely different game systems and assets required for Mercenaries made it a much more resource-intensive affair, making it a prime candidate for the chopping block.
Though there is no indication of this in the blog post, it is highly possible that the decision coincides with Blizzard’s loss of access to the Chinese market after the expiration of their deal with NetEase, with no new partner in sight. Games like this are much more popular in that part of the world, and the loss of that significant section of the player base no doubt played a part in the decision to axe the floundering experiment.
Coming shortly after the decision to kneecap the game’s esports side after years of mismanagement, this is another worrying development for Hearthstone fans.
