Hearthstone recently announced its 22nd card expansion, and the beginning of a new year of content. Called Voyage to the Sunken City, Hearthstone dives deep into the Great Sea to explore the ruins of Zin-Azshari, the former capital city of the night elves before the Sundering. The seafloor is full of history, mystery, and mighty monsters too large for a single card to encapsulate their size. The new cards release on April 12th, and Hearthstone will be revealing the rest of the 135 new cards in the time until its release.
Game Rant recently sat down with Blizzard author and songwriter for many of Hearthstone's trailers Christie Golden and senior Hearthstone narrative designer Valerie Chu. In the interview, they spoke about the deep history of Zin-Azshari and the Kaldorei empire, and how the unique vessel of Hearthstone allows them to explore the setting in unexpected ways. They also introduced the cast of characters Voyage to the Sunken City would focus on and gave players a taste of what the solo content of this expansion cycle could look like. The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: The combination of chilling, austere Darnassian lyrics with synthwave created an atmosphere as haunting as it was catchy. What was the design process for combining these two seemingly opposite things to create the ambiance for Voyage to the Sunken City, and how did you develop the lyrics?
Golden: It has been a lot of fun! It was a real team project. Everyone wanted to do something magical and dream-like. The music seemed well-suited to that–what is real, what is illusion? For my part, when you start talking about sunken cities under the sea, a beautiful queen, the call of the ocean, what do you think of? You think of the sirens and the sailors. So, I thought it would be cool if we had a song that was almost a siren song to say “Come to the sea, come to Nazjatar. Oh, children of the stars, we face devastation, Nazjatar, come home, come home to the sea.” Something cool to tell the story a little bit. It worked really well together, I thought. I was blown away the first time I heard those beautiful voices singing it.
We decided to do it in Darnassian because we thought it would be fun for us and for our viewers. They love digging deeper into things, and we though they might enjoy hearing something in the native language, so the experts could try to decipher the lyrics. I met with Justin, who is one of our fantastic lore team members. We had developed this language long, long ago, so we had a lot of words and a grammatical template to go from. There were some words we did not have, so we got to create a few new words in another language, which is always fun. We presented them with a much longer version because we didn’t know how much they would want to use. They picked the ones they thought were best-suited. I think it became something hauntingly beautiful in the end.
Q: Zin-Azshari–now Nazjatar–looks very different in Voyage to the Sunken City than it did in World of Warcraft when it was added as a playable zone in Battle for Azeroth. How was it to explore this historic place through the unique lens of Hearthstone?
Chu: The Hearthstone team loves doing its own spin on the themes from WoW and highlighting a few sides players didn’t get to experience already, so there’s something new and fresh to explore, even though the theme might be something based in a familiar place. The art team was especially excited to go in and carve out what all of those different areas underwater would look like. The more shallow areas might be brighter and full of beautiful fish, and the dark, scary areas like Azshara’s palace are terrifying, right? There’s a lot of ground to cover there. It became this wonderful ode to exploration and discovery for the team. We hope players will enjoy that as well.
Q: As far as the Solo Adventure for Voyage to the Sunken City, what can we expect the solo content to look like? Will it be a more narrative story like Ashes of Outland or the Book of Mercenaries, will it be more of an explorative mode like Kobolds & Catacombs or the Witchwood expansions, or will it be something totally different?
Chu: I don’t want to give away too many spoilers, but we will have some solo content coming up that dives deeper into Faelin’s storyline–puns possibly intended–and you will get to see how the premise of the cinematic plays out. He’s in the ship–Ini Stormcoil, the engineer with him, is helping him get back to the ruins of his homeland. Zin-Azshari is a place he hasn’t seen since before its destruction, so there’s a journey of self-discovery there for him as well. When he left, everything was great; he had no idea Azshara was involved with all of these dark powers. The wonderful siren’s song Christie worked on captures how he feels about going home only to find the reality of what is waiting down there is something he didn’t quite plan for.
Q: The new characters seem fun and colorful, the nightbourne Ambassador Faelin and the mechagnome engineer Ini Stormcoil especially. Can you talk more about who they are, and what role they might play in Voyage to the Sunken City?
Chu: Faelin is our entry point into this world. He has been living in Suramar, where he was sent as an ambassador from Zin-Azshari before the Sundering, so he goes way back. But years do, unfortunately, not always equal wisdom. He’s been living this charmed life in Suramar enjoying things, and he wants to go back home to see what it looks like now, after so many years. So, he’s hired the mechagnome, Ini Stormcoil, who is this brilliant engineer. But, like some brilliant people, she’s caught up on whether she can rather than whether she should. She’s only too happy to go exploring to the bottom of the sea with all of these beautiful ships she’s created. You see the ship they’re in–it’s almost organic as it’s going through the water. But her genius in making ships doesn’t quite save her from all of the trouble Faelin finds himself in down there.
Q: A couple of familiar faces popped up in the trailer: Captain Hooktusk appeared near the end, and Sir Finley Mrrgglton seems to be helping Faelin and Ini. What roles will they play in the expansion’s narrative?
Chu: Ambassador Faelin is well-suited to access and handsomely reward the best talent out there. So, who could be better than Sir Finley? He was made for this sort of thing; it is indeed his element. Although Finley is familiar with the sea, maybe not so much with the naga. The dangers of Nazjatar would put anyone through their paces, so it will be an exciting adventure for him as well. They are quite the fun team.
But, anyone on the high seas is going to risk running into Captain Hooktusk–one of our original Hearthstone characters. She’s also very much in her element here, and she is perhaps interested in these lovely ships Ini Stormcoil has created.
Q: Faelin had a bobble head of Reno Jackson on the dashboard of his ship. Will he or the other member of the League of Explorers show up, or is this an opportunity for Sir Finley to shine on his own, separate from the rest of his normal companions?
Chu: Sir Finley is certainly in the spotlight, along with Ambassador Faelin and Ini Stormcoil, but it is nice they have Reno watching over them. Don’t we all want Reno watching over us?
Q: The previous expansion cycle’s Mercenary characters were some of the most beloved by fans of Hearthstone and Warcraft. Though the story is moving on to a new chapter with Voyage to the Sunken City, is it possible they might be seen again in the future?
Chu: It’s really exciting to wrap up their story, or the part of it that appears in the Book of Mercenaries. I think for Hearthstone, it’s “Never say never.” We do love to bring characters back, especially if players ask for them. Player feedback is important to us in that regard. So, if people love certain characters, share your love, and they might come back one day.
Q: Hearthstone is, at its core, a multiplayer card game before a narrative-heavy game. What is it like being a narrative designer and lore expert in such a game, and what role do you play in the creation of the card sets?
Chu: Our wonderful set design team focuses on the expansion set cards, but we work together at the start of the process to brainstorm and figure out what would be great to see. For this round, everyone felt like “Ahh, underwater, that’s something we haven’t done yet, we want to see that.” When we were talking together, we decided to focus on the character of Ambassador Faelin as our entry point into this ancient and complicated world. From there, it inspired a lot of wonderful mechanics from the set design team. The art team did this incredible job bringing the world to life on the cards and backgrounds, and with spells and locations.
I do feel like everyone is essentially a storyteller, but if you do need to know things, like how to say ‘Zin-Azshari’ or complicated elvish words, I can help you out! Christie can help you out! We’re working there to help find the best way to capture the story the whole team wants to tell, so it’s very much a group effort.
Q: What is it like taking your experience from writing novels and characters for World of Warcraft and applying it to Hearthstone and vice versa, given they are set in different iterations of the same world?
Golden: It certainly does help. Hearthstone is a spinoff from World of Warcraft and borrows heavily from it, so my experience is usually very helpful. I’m also an amateur singer and songwriter, so I have written a lot of songs. I’ve actually written the book and lyrics for a musical that has been produced, so I love it when I get assigned to do Hearthstone songs. One of the coolest things about this one in particular was how different it was from a standard musical. So, I think it enhances it, but Hearthstone has its own characters and feel, and its own unique way of looking at the world–usually with tongue-in-cheek. It’s helpful, but Hearthstone is definitely Hearthstone and WoW is definitely WoW, but I enjoy working with both of them.
Q: What aspect of Voyage of the Sunken City are you each most excited for?
Golden: I want to find out about Faelin! I love that Valerie said the city is complicated and complex. He sounds like he is a simple soul. I am interested in seeing how that interacts. I think that’s going to be a lot of fun.
Chu: I feel like this is the Hearthstone set I’ve had the most fun making decks for. When it comes to the solo content, I create many of the decks and cards for the ones used in the adventures, like I did for Book of Heroes and so on. It’s been so much fun playing with the mechanics and riffing off what the set design team has created with the collectible cards to make special experiences for players that help tell Faelin’s story. I’m just really excited for all of that. I feel like together as a suite of new mechanics, they capture the feeling of being underwater and exploring the history of Zin-Azshari so well. It makes me happy every time.
Q: Which of the giant sea monsters with the new Colossal mechanic in Voyage to the Sunken City has been your favorite?
Chu: That’s a really hard decision. They’re all cool in different ways. I think my actual favorite hasn’t been revealed yet, so stay tuned–there’s more to come! But the drama of playing a Colossal minion, and seeing it take up those multiple slots on your board it’s really fun each time. It’s almost a theatrical moment. Our designers were initially inspired by the monsters on the edge of maps of the ocean in early times, before they charted everything. So the idea of that scary thing you always knew was lurking out there? Now it’s in the middle of your board. Good luck with that!
Q: What lessons have you taken from previous expansions to enhance the experience for Voyage to the Sunken City?
Chu: There are so many things. The team is always evolving and trying to do better to respond to player feedback–and our own feedback, because we all play a lot. I think in particular here, the set designers were excited to focus on exploration again as a more open theme after focusing very tightly on the storyline of Book of Mercenaries, just to keep it fresh. On my side, I feel like the story of Faelin evolved really organically, and I was excited with the upcoming solo content to use a bunch of my learnings from the Book of Heroes and the other books that have come out to try new things, and to hopefully make things players will enjoy even more.
Golden: On my side of the fence, it was great to have the team have our backs. They like it when we suggest new things, and it felt good to have their enthusiasm and their passion, particularly with this because it was so different. So, we felt confident with their faith in us, and that let us relax about it, and really try to push this. “How can we make it even better, and make it different?” It was a lovely experience, like I said earlier, it really is a whole team effort. It’s the director, it’s the team members, it’s the composer, it’s the storyboard artists, editors–everyone at CDev likes working with the Hearthstone team. It’s a lot of fun. You look forward to it, it’s a great group. I appreciate the confidence they have; it lets us feel safe in trying to suggest new things, and I think the more we can do to improve and grow and do something different helps us keep everything fresh and exciting.
Q: Do you play any Hearthstone yourself, Christie?
Golden: I don’t play much of it, but I do have a funny story about my first time. You start with Jaina opposite Garrosh. It was the first time I have ever played Hearthstone at all, and I was not very good, so I lost during the tutorial level!
Q: Do either of you have a favorite type of deck to play?
Golden: I’ve tried all of the decks now, and I love all of them. It’s great to hear all the voice acting. It makes for a fun experience to settle down and play a little Hearthstone every now and then.
Chu: So, I don’t want to appear favoritist–I like all of our classes a lot–but I am a little partial to Demon Hunter after working on the Illidan prologue and leaving off on Illidan in the Book of Heroes. I thought it was really special we were able to add a new class to Hearthstone after so much time. The mechanics the team came up with were so fresh and fun. It suits Illidan so perfectly too. But we also Aranna as our other Demon Hunter character, who is so wonderful, and Kurtrus has joined as well. Every time there’s a new Demon Hunter, it’s a good time.
Q: Any final thoughts on Voyage to the Sunken City, and the new yearly cycle of Hearthstone content?
Golden: It was just a lovely experience. It was a cool idea, and it was something everybody got excited about, and to be able to watch it come together was great. I’d come to a meeting, and they’d show us what they had gone off to do and work their magic, to see that cinematic come together so well. And when we finally got the music, we all knew this was something special.
Chu: I totally agree. The cinematic does a really good job of setting the tone of a year of fresh new things coming to Hearthstone. We did the year-long narrative last time. It’s time to switch things up a bit this time, and we're ready to explore new waters and dive in to see what’s out there. We hope everyone will join us for that!
Hearthstone is currently available for Mobile and PC. Voyage to the Sunken City releases on April 12th.