Hearthstone open beta launches in North America

The time for begging, hoping and forum-scouring for invites is over, and the time for unrestricted access to Hearthstone is here... for many of us, at least. Blizzard just launched its Warcraft-themed free-to-play card game into open beta in North America, with other regions rolling out "within the next few days," which means you'll see a big purple "Play Free Now" button on the Hearthstone website if you live in the US or Canada. If you've been waiting for your shot at card battling greatness, love Magic the Gathering, or just want to see what all the fuss is about, wait no longer.

Hearthstone's open beta rollout was originally promised for a December launch , but it took a little longer for Blizzard to open the gates to the entire PC community. More than a million players were in on the closed beta, and Blizzard is still in the process of balancing the game , as we wrote yesterday.

Don't worry, folks! The #Hearthstone Open Beta will go live in other regions within the next few days. http://t.co/NI2BAYFjdr January 21, 2014

Playing Hearthstone requires a Battle.net account. We'd also recommend an iron will, or you may find yourself paying handfuls of real money for digital cards. Grab the beta client right here . Here's our most recent impressions of the game , too.

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).