July 28, 2024 ChinaJoy Blizzard booth, Nathan, the executive producer of Hearthstone, announced the latest news about the return of the Chinese server: the Chinese server of Hearthstone will return on September 25, and the players of the Chinese server will also get the unprecedented return compensation of Hearthstone.
CJ Blizzard booth
On April 10, 2024, Blizzard and NetEase announced "reunion", Blizzard's games under the Entertainment division will return to the Chinese market according to the updated game distribution agreement, starting from the summer of this year. Currently, World of Warcraft's official server has returned on August 1, and Hearthstone is Blizzard's second game scheduled to return.
According to insiders, regardless of whether you are a new or old player, as long as you log in on September 25, you can get 2154 cards, including all 97 "Gold Stories", which were "missed" in the standard mode of Lone Year (2023), for free.
“These benefits are quite sincere. The friends around me are very willing to return.” After knowing the reward content, a senior player of Hearthstone told Silver Horse Finance,“The rare cards are quite rare. The value of the whole set of cards is more than 200,000 yuan according to the previous calculation. The other benefits will be released later.”
In the comment section of the official Weibo of Hearthstone, many players also exclaimed that these benefits are so good that they can "forget" the previous stop of the game.
Except for the free cards, after the server is opened on September 25, players can participate in the exclusive return activities to complete tasks. According to the official statement of Hearthstone,“All the free and paid collections missed due to the stop of the server will be returned in the future to ensure that every player's collection is complete.”
It is worth mentioning that with the re-opening of the Chinese server, the players of the Chinese server will also return to the international competition of Hearthstone. At the end of the year, the global final of the 2024 Master's Tournament will have 4 direct invitations for Chinese players. At the same time, NetEase will also sponsor an additional 100,000 yuan of prize money based on the existing basis. The specific selection rules will be announced in the future.
Previously, due to the closure of the Chinese server, Chinese players were restricted from participating in the competition. In January 2023, Blizzard released the rules of the Hearthstone competition on its official website, and in the FAQ section at the bottom, it was mentioned that players living in mainland China would not be able to participate in the competition, and if a player found a partner in mainland China during the competition, their participation qualification would be re-evaluated. Details can be seen in the Silver Horse Finance report