Behind the Scenes With Hearthstone's Death Knight
It's mid-October 2022, and I'm back at Blizzard HQ. The last time I was here (and as a matter of fact, in America as a whole) was in late January 2020, just as COVID-19 was really starting to build a head of steam. A lot has changed since then. Blizzard has had a very public fall from grace, as many of the company's employees stood up and made their voices heard on a wide range of issues, from rampant gender inequality to toxic work cultures. The campus itself is also a strange shadow of its former self. Once a bustling mini-metropolis with open plan offices full of people, meeting rooms playing host to lively discussions and dogs congregating alongside their owners on the lawn outside the cafeteria, the halls and working spaces are now eerily quiet, desks mostly empty aside from monitor frames and chairs. Staff are beginning to make their way back, but it's a gradual process, and the current ghost town vibe offers a stark juxtaposition to the before times.
One thing that this visit does have in common with the last time I made the journey across the Pacific is that Team 5 - the Hearthstone team - are preparing to launch a new class. In 2020 it was Demon Hunter, but now they're embracing one of the great stories of Warcraft - the fall of Arthas Menethil and his transformation into the accursed Lich King - and introducing the Death Knight.
The Death Knight was a hugely versatile class in World of Warcraft, and that has carried over in impressive fashion to Hearthstone. Instead of picking and choosing elements from its World of Warcraft specialisations, Team 5 has instead brought across Blood, Frost and Unholy wholesale, with a rune system that allows players to build decks focusing on one, two or all three of these at a
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