Many new cards have been added to the game so far

Aug 20, 2015 12:46 GMT  ·  By

Hearthstone developer Blizzard doesn't rule out eliminating older cards from the hugely popular online game, especially since over 100 new cards are coming next week, in the form of The Grand Tournament update.

Hearthstone has been around as a final version for quite some time now, and while the collectible card game started out with a decent amount of actual cards, its portfolio increased exponentially with expansions and themed updates like the Curse of Naxxramas, Gnomes vs. Goblins, or Blackrock Mountain.

The latest and greatest expansion, The Grand Tournament, arrives next week and brings a whopping 132 new cards, ranging from regular, low-mana cost characters, to heftier ones that augment the Hero Ability or introduce new mechanics like Joust and Inspire.

Hearthstone's card variety might decrease in the future

However, the constant addition of new cards is posing a problem for developer Blizzard, as it wants to keep things simple enough for newcomers, as well as for players that return to the title after a break.

While talking with Gamespot, Blizzard's Executive Producer Hamilton Chu mentions that the plan is to keep Hearthstone around for 10 to 20 years and this poses a big problem as more expansions will add more cards and pose even bigger challenges to newcomers.

Chu says the studio is trying to tackle this obstacle and doesn't rule out the option of removing older cards, in some situations.

"We want Hearthstone to be around for 10 to 20 years. That's what Blizzard does. So, if we're here for a long time, that means we'll need to add more cards. But this problem of adding more cards is going to make it harder and harder for new players. This is something we're going to have to figure out how to manage and how to address in the long term. There's no easy answer," he explains.

Hearthstone is getting more and more popular nowadays, despite the huge number of cards, so it seems that Blizzard isn't forced to tackle the problem just yet. However, the future might bring surprises from the studio.