Boys, look who it is: Curse of Naxxramas coming July 22

Heigan living up to his moniker

Blizzard Entertainment knows how to do a couple things really well: make great games and hype the hell out of every one of them. The latest example of this is the upcoming expansion for Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Curse of Naxxramas. The hype started with the expansion’s announcement, which occurred just days before the eagerly anticipated release of Hearthstone for iPad. Yes, many of us knew an expansion was coming for a game we had yet to play.

After that, it was the usual Blizzard frontal assault. Weekly card leaks, pricing leaks and confirmations and the entire time never committing to a release date.

Until today.

The Curse of Naxxramas expansion’s first “wing”, the Arachnid Quarter, will be released on July 22 with the other four weeks arriving each successive week after that. The expansion will bring a whole new single player Adventure Mode to Hearthstone, which will allow you to battle bosses from Naxxramas and earn new cards, which can then be used in regular Hearthstone play. The expansion will also bring Heroic mode, in which you’ll fight über-bosses, earning new card backs, as well as Class Challenges which will allow each class to earn a new class-specific card.

If you pick up the first wing when it releases, it will be free to download, with each successive wing costing $7 or 700 gold. The price can be reduced by purchasing the wings in bulk, like some sort of IAP Costco.