Hearthstone update suggests 'Appear Offline' mode is finally on its way

The option to appear offline in the likes of Overwatch and Hearthstone has been something players have been badgering Blizzard about for quite some time. The latest patch for the latter now suggests this function could be on its way.

That's according to Hearthpwn who spotted a few new strings tied to the digital card 'em up's freshest update which appear to indicate offline functionality's imminent arrival. Here's that:

It's worth noting here that Blizzard first addressed offline functionality way back in 2012—and it was again raised by Overwatch's Jeff Kaplan towards the end of last year.

In November Kaplan said: "We would like to add an 'Appear Offline' option to Overwatch. We are in the process of coordinating this with Battle.net and the other game teams. Because our social system is a cross-game system (WoW, Hearthstone, Heroes, SC2, D3) adding this functionality is not trivial for us. I know there has been discussion around this feature for a long time, and things have definitely not moved at a rate which is acceptable, I can assure you we care about the feature and want to figure out how to make it happen."

Although far from conclusive, it seems Blizzard offline functionality is finally on the horizon. We'll update as and when we hear more.