Blizzard has had a lot of public-facing game directors over the years. Overwatch’s Jeff Kaplan, World of Warcraft’s Chris Metzen, and Hearthstone’s Ben Brode became legendary figures within their game’s communities, arguably just as beloved as the characters they helped create. That level of accessibility and community involvement is part of what made Blizzard stand out among triple-A game studios, and it's a tradition that continues today with directors like WoW’s Ion Hazzikostas and Diablo franchise director Rod Fergusson.
For years,♈ Hearthstone has been the exception. Former director Ben Brode was as beloved by the Hearthstone community as any director has ever been, but since leaving Blizzard to develop Marvel Snap at his own studio in 2018, Hearthstone hasn’t had a figurehead. Your average Hearthstone player either doesn’t know who the director is anymore, or they still think it’s Brode. Heck, , despite having left the company more than six years ago.
Hearthstone has had a few different directors since Brode, of course, and over the last 16 months, that title has belonged to Tyler Bielman. I was invited to join Bielman for a short interview during a recent visit to the Blizzard campus to talk about the future of Hearthstone, which recently celebrate🍸d its tenth anniversary. As far as I can tell, this is the first time Bielman has conducted intervಌiews with the press since joining Blizzard last April.

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Walking into the interview, I expected to💟 meet someone mild-mannered and reserved; someone who wouldn’t be able to represent the game with Brode’s level of charisma and enthusiasm. And while I’m not sure there’s any developer oꦉut there that could clear that high bar, Bielman is exactly the kind of charming and passionate director Blizzard is known for pushing into the spotlight.
It only took a few minutes for me to be convinced that the veteran developer, who has spent more than 20 years as a TCG designer and video game developer, really gets Hearthstone. His earnestness and admiration for the game come through so clearly when he speaks, and I just couldn’t understand why he’s behind the scenes when 💮he could be front and center, the way his most well-known predecessor was. So, I asked him.
“When I started I spoke with the marketing team, the PR team, and with Nathan [Lyons-Smith] the executive producer, and asked, ‘How can I best be of service to the game? We can try me being that sort of forward face like that, or we can give other people more opportunities,’” Bielman explains. “Ultimately, the decision we collectively came to was we didn’t think having a single face was necessarily in the interest of the game or the brand. I like that answer because I think that the game is for all of us and I don’t think tying it to one personality is necessarily what’s right for Hea📖rthstone at this point.”
Bi🐠elman says giving opportunities to developers that are earlier on in their career is more important to him than taking the spotlight for himself. “It is intentional that I’m not as out there,” he says. “And it’s perfectly cool with me.”
The end of Mercenaries last year, the removal of Duels this year, and the total lack of new solo adventures over the last few years all ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚseem to point 🧔to the same thing: ten years in, Hearthstone is over the hill, and starting to run out of steam.
It’s been a few weeks since our interview, and I can’t help but wonder if having Bielman be more visible could have staved off some of the communication issues the studio has been dealing with recently. Just last week the company had to address a mounting online pan🌞ic that the development of Hearthstone was starting to wind down . Without a trusted name and face to deliver important updates about the game, it can be easy to interpret some of Hearthstone’s recent chaℱnges as worrying signs for the future.
The end of Mercenaries last year, the removal of Duels this year, and the total lack of new solo adventures over the last few years all seem to point to the same thing: ten years in, Hearthstone is over the hill, and starting to run out of steam. What’s more, unpopular changes to weekly quests that increase the grind read🌃 like the telltale signs of a game that&rs𒀰quo;s bleeding players and starting to put the squeeze on the ones it still has.
♒ Bielman acknowledges that they’ve “made a few mistakes over the last 15 months that were not great,” but that the team tries to correct them as fast as they can. “There’s limitations to the technology, limitations to how fast we can respond, but that commitment to relentlessly delivering a live service game that is as good as it can be at any moment, that’s really important to us.”
Bielman’s vision for the future isn’t solely focused on plussing up existing game modes though. While it's important to over-deliver where the players already are, he says the team also needs to continue experimenting to find 'the next big thing.'
When it comes to the changing scope of Hearthstone and the abandoned game modes, Bielman says that in෴ order to “over-deliver for the players in the areas that are the most important,” he has to be careful about spreading the team too thin. “I have to pick and choose a little bit on where we’re going to really focus our energies,” he explains. As a byproduct of losing things like Duels, Bielman says we’re going to see Hearthstone “focusing in”. He cites Battlegrounds Duos as one example, a new feature for ༺an experimental game mode that far exceeded everyone’s expectations. Bielman believes Duos resonates with players because it adds a new emotional component to the auto-battler by giving players the opportunity to help each other and win together. “That’s an example of a focused effort that we can only do with a lot of the team centered on that idea, and not other areas.”
Bielman’s vision for the future isn’t solely focused on plussing up existing game modes though. While it's important to over-deliver where the players already are, he says the team also needs to continue experimenting to find “the next big thing.” The new Twist format, introduced in May, is a big part of that process. Twist is an event-based mode where the devs can try stuff without committing to an entire new game mode that may or may not be successful. “I don’t want to add another thing into your day-to-day play,” Bielman says. “If we ask you to come look at this thing, it’s because we think it’s cool and probably, secretly, we’re looking to learn something.” These kinds of “calculated experiments”, along with over-investing in the parts of Hearthstone that are already successful, are where the team will put their efforts moving forward.
Bielman describes a studio that’s heavily engaged in an ongoing dialogue with its 🐼community, one that values feedback and strives to make the best possible experience for every kind of player.
As we talk about the past, present, and future of Hearthstone, Bielman always brings every point he makes back to the players, and what they want Hearthstone to be. He describes the relationship between the community managers, the content creators, and the high-end players as “tightly knit” and a constant source of input and direction for the game. “The players are the beginning, middle, and end of the experience,” he says. A lot of the current design team is made up of those streamers and high-end players who are “very in touch with the player point of view.” “They have a degree of🌸 empathy for any given player in the chair, but also with the broader community at large.”
Bielman describes a studio that’s heavily engaged in an ongoing dialogue with its community, one that values feedback and strives to make the best possible experience for every kind of player. “If you’re a free-to-play player or if you’re a heavily invested player in terms of time or dollars, how do we make sure you’re having a great experience across the board?” It’s hard to tell how much Bielman is describing Hearthstone’s communit꧑y engagement as it exists today, or if he’s speaking more aspirationally, but with the ten-year anniversary in the rear-view, it&r🌟squo;s clear that his sights are set on a bright future.
“When I think about the future of Hearthstone, I want to be fearless,” he says. “I don’t want to be careless, but I want to be fearless. I want to take some swings. I think what you’re going to see over the next year is we’re taking a 𒐪few swings.”

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