Slightly more than a week has passed since the release of *Hearthstone: Across The Timeways*. Blizzard introduced some bold new mechanics into the latest expansion for its long-running digital card game, with one of the biggest innovations being the introduction of Fabled cards. These cards bring three special synergy cards into a player’s deck for every class, marking a clear departure from the traditional Legendary cards that Hearthstone players typically expect.
While every class received three Fabled cards, the Warlock class came with a notable exception: a special Fabled+ card designed after Hearthstone’s most recognizable villain, Rafaam. The 10-Cost Timethief Rafaam is unique, introducing ten extra cards into a player’s deck and representing one of the most innovative concepts to come to Hearthstone in recent times. This design was a point of pride for developers such as Senior Game Designer Stephen Chang and UI/UX Designer Sola Chang.
“I think Rafaam didn’t change that much from initial conception,” Stephen Chang told Shacknews. “We had the idea of doing Rafaam fairly early on, and we knew we wanted Rafaam to be Fabled+. Most of the changes we did during final design were adjustments to make some of the Rafaams a bit more playable and stronger. Because the deck grows to a size of 40, we needed to ensure that you had enough strong plays to get you to the end game. So we juiced up some of the Rafaams along the way, but holistically, I think most of the designs stayed the same.”
Each of the ten Rafaams features different levels of power, but all share the same Cost, Attack, and Health values. This design choice allowed the team to experiment with various unique effects, leading to some minor tweaks during development. Chang elaborated, “A few of them we modified slightly to be a bit more generically playable. I think one of the Discover ones we adjusted, and then we gave [Mindflayer R’faam], which summons a copy, Taunt to give it more board presence. But overall, it’s kind of a testament to the initial design team. A lot of the designs went through the whole process without heavy modifications, which was really cool. It’s not common that that happens, but we had a lot of good initial ideas for the mechanics we wanted to highlight these characters with. The essence of those designs stayed true throughout the whole set.”
Playing all of the Rafaams triggers a final Battlecry from the 10-Cost Timethief Rafaam, which destroys the enemy hero and usually ends the game. While this game-ending effect feels extremely special, there was a time when Rafaam was not the only card considered for such a powerful ability. The Rogue almost received a similar effect with the 4-Cost Garona Halforcen.
“Garona used to also destroy the hero, but we didn’t like that the damage the Rogue player dealt throughout the game wasn’t going to have as much of an impact,” Stephen Chang explained. “So we wanted it to be a bit more impactful, so that as you were dealing damage throughout the game, you could still get that bonus effect on top of it. A few of the outputs did change, but for Rafaam itself, [the effect] was always to destroy the enemy hero.”
As the Hearthstone player base navigates the evolving meta, Blizzard has also teased the new Rewind mechanic, which offers second-chance effects on specific cards. This mechanic fits well with the heroic Keeper of Time Chromie, but the visual effects initially caused some concern due to their lengthy animations, which extended turn times. Blizzard was conscious of this issue prior to the expansion’s release and has since been working on improvements.
“The reason why we’re doing [the Rewind animation] is not only to tie it to a part of the fantasy, but because there’s some technical implementation that requires us to cover the screen as we reset the board to undo the actions if you Rewind,” UI/UX Designer Sola Chang explained. “When we worked on that, there was a lot of effort spent making it as efficient as we can. We read and heard many comments from the community and players, so the engineering team and a lot of game devs came together to make that a faster experience. We definitely have some updates coming out very soon to make that time a bit faster, so we’re super excited for that update to come out. I’m hoping the players will enjoy that new experience with the improved Rewind animation.”
*Hearthstone: Across The Timeways* continues to push the boundaries of the game with its inventive designs and mechanics, and Blizzard appears committed to fine-tuning the experience based on player feedback. Fans can look forward to seeing how the meta evolves with these new additions in the coming weeks.
https://www.shacknews.com/article/146793/hearthstone-across-the-timeways-developer-interview
