Earlier this month Hearthstone players were surprised, and some were more than a little upset, to discover that upcoming expansion Perils in Paradise would not have its own custom game board, the background on which a Hearthstone match is played. It quickly led to many doom-and-gloom predictions that this was the beginning of the end for Hearthstone, the start of a degradation of service that would lead to its cancellation—like Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm before it.
Blizzard's development team has now responded by pretty much saying "We're not dying, honest." Instead Blizzard wants Hearthstone players to know that it's pivoting a bit on how Hearthstone updates are made while shifting some resources to other parts of Hearthstone, like player personalization—not to other projects entirely.
Hearthstone executive producer Nathan Lyons-Smith summed up Blizzard's response very succinctly: "Moving forward, we will ensure that you get early visibility on changes like this and give you more information on what we’re working on instead."
Lyons-Smith also separately addressed the current state, immediate past, and what work is being done on the future of Hearthstone: "We are doing meaningful research and development for the future of Hearthstone to ensure that the Tavern will be a home for you for another decade and beyond. While we are not ready to share any information about this work yet—and will not be for a while—I want you to know that we are committed to Hearthstone as we know it today," he said.
"We made some changes over the past 18 months that were not what you’ve come to expect from Hearthstone. We didn’t do a good job communicating our strategy around those changes. I apologize for that. Going forward, it is my goal to be more open. We should proactively share changes we are making with our community, alongside context around why we’re making these changes. I will start addressing that now," he continued.
Most of the changes Lyons-Smith outlined in the post are ones aimed toward customization of the game landscape, which player polling has indicated people want, over the same kinds of cosmetic changes Hearthstone has been doing for the past decade. Lyons-Smith also emphasized future changes on the order of game mode shakeups and revitalizations like the addition of new cards and card pools to Arena, as well as the addition of Battlegrounds Duos earlier this year.
You can find the entire statement on the future of Hearthstone on Blizzard's site.
