Hearthstone game director bows to community pressure and records a rap

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Reddit was mad that there was no song to go with Journey to Un’Goro, so demanded Ben Brode sing one.

This week’s announcement that the next Hearthstone expansion will be Journey to Un’Goro was pretty sweet. Themed around a prehistoric crater in which all manner of wildlife dwells, the 135 new cards will include a new keyword, ‘Adapt’, that enables creatures to evolve according to 10 different possible buffs, plus a new ‘Quest’ system that will see players rewarded with powerful Legendary cards for completing pre-determined conditions. What Un’Goro lacked, however, was a theme song. And the internet wasn’t happy about it.

The cinematic trailers for Hearthstone’s previous expansions, such as Mean Streets of Gadgetzan and The League of Explorers, have all come with jaunty ear-worms. So Reddit did it what it did best, and complained about it. Before long, Hearthstone’s game director took notice. 

Ever the sport, this morning Brode delivered in spades, serving up two and half minutes of stone cold beats and memes on his personal YouTube channel. 

What’s remarkable is how the one man, plaid-clad glee club has managed to work in all Un’Goro’s announced features, a reasonably catchy chorus, and some delightful fourth wall-busting asides. Team 5 has come in for some stinging, and at times deserved, criticism for their communication during the Shamanstone era, but since the Year of the Mammoth announcement they’ve been absolutely on point. So, with a new Overwatch hero also being teased by Blizzard, all I can say is: Your move, Jeff Kaplan.

Tim Clark
Tim Clark

With over two decades covering videogames, Tim has been there from the beginning. In his case, that meant playing Elite in 'co-op' on a BBC Micro (one player uses the movement keys, the other shoots) until his parents finally caved and bought an Amstrad CPC 6128. These days, when not steering the good ship PC Gamer, Tim spends his time complaining that all Priest mains in Hearthstone are degenerates and raiding in Destiny 2. He's almost certainly doing one of these right now.