World of Warcraft's next expansion will be revealed in April

Blizzard hasn't revealed the next World of Warcraft expansion yet, but it has revealed when it will be revealed, as well as the reveal timing for the next Hearthstone expansion and, with somewhat less specificity, the upcoming Warcraft mobile game.

It's going to be a busy spring for Blizzard, beginning with Hearthstone. The first of three expansions planned for Hearthstone this year will be unveiled on March 15, shortly after which developers will "provide a deeper look into the plans for Hearthstone for 2022—including the annual core set changes."

The reveal of the next World of Warcraft expansion will follow a month later, on April 19. WoW's latest expansion, Shadowlands, pretty much wrapped things up with its last major patch, which rolled out in February.

A month after that, give or take—it's only set for May, with no specific date—the Warcraft mobile game that was revealed in February will be detailed to some greater extent. This is the one that I think is most interesting, at least for now, because Blizzard hasn't revealed anything about what it actually is: As we noted last month, it could be anything from a mobile redo of the original Warcraft RTS to Hearthstone 2, although obviously that's extremely unlikely. Blizzard didn't clarify much with this announcement except to suggest that it will be something entirely new, describing it as "the first game in the Warcraft Universe designed for mobile."

"The future of Warcraft is bright," Warcraft general manager John Hight wrote. "On behalf of all of us at Blizzard working to bring even more exciting Warcraft experiences to you, we thank you for being a part of the community. We're excited about the journey in front of us and are grateful that you're joining us for it."

We may have a little more insight into what to look forward to with Hearthstone. Game director Ben Lee outlined some planned changes coming to the game in 2022, including that multiple new card types are on the way. He also announced that he's leaving the Hearthstone team to work on a different, unannounced project within Blizzard.

TOPICS

PRODUCTS

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.