Glad to hear you're interested in the new single player campaign! We wanted to give everyone a few weeks after the expansion before talking about it more, but stick around, here's the plan:
Next week on Thursday May 9th we'll post a video where Mission Designer Giovanni Scarpati will walk you through all the stuff to come. We'll also be announcing the launch date (don't worry - it's soon!). There's a LOT to talk about, we're pretty fired up about it. Stay tuned for more!
Source: Reddit
We can't lie: last solo mode, the one of Rastakhan's Rumble, was pretty much a failure. Too short and easy depending on our last boss, a cheap reward and a short lifespan... players were disappointed. They are unlikely to be disappointed in the numerous episodes of the upcoming solo mode of the Year of the Dragon, though. Yes, those "numerous episodes", because the Year of the Dragon will follow a plot and a background that Blizzard knows best how to bring life to.
- Release date: nearly one month after April expansion.
A deeper solo mode than its predecessors
Be sure of this: this solo mode (spread out on the 3 Year of the Dragon expansions) will be the most accomplished ever on the game. If basics will stay the same as Dungeon Run and Monster Run, thus in a Rogue-like format, this version will be more advanced because:
- The player will be able to choose his hero, heroic power (the basic and two completely new ones), the direction of his deck, or to increase the difficulty by letting the game randomly choose a random deck.
- There will be some non-violent encounters in the Tavern, which may even be useful for deckbuilding.
- In the manner of the first adventures (Naxxramas, Blackrock Mountain...), there will be 2 difficulty choices.
- Players will be able to track their completion of the solo mode: which class ended which chapter? How many bosses were slain by your Warrior hero? In which difficulty? Those datas may interest you when you come close of getting all rewards (which are way more interesting than your Troll Games!)
- After each chapter, players will receive 3 expansion's boosters, and after completing all chapters, they will receive a backcard and a classic golden booster.
How does it work?
- This first Year of the Dragon solo mode will consist of 5 chapters, each of them having a run of 8 random bosses.
- Each chapter has its proper specificities which can be beneficial or not, depending on your class and deck type.
- The first chapter will be offered as soon as it will be released, and you will be forced to play Mage.
- Other chapters will be unlocked during the 4 weeks after the release.
- Each one will unlock the access to 2 other classes, new bosses and new rewards.
- Each chapter will be available for 700 golden coins (or 19.99$ for the entire adventure).
Our thoughts
Without going into details, the gameplay is way funnier than during the last solo modes. His passives are, for the most part, new (and there are more), as well as the items/allies that we can get between combats.
The variety of what we can modify at the beginning of a run, but also during a run, makes that no experience is alike. The lifespan should be acceptable and we can see that there was a great deal of work done. As often, bosses have pretty perfect emotes and react very well during combats. Some of them may even remind players of very well-known old identities.
The fact that all of this is "only" the first part of a story which will consist of 3 chapters during the Year of the Dragon (or more) makes us want to see what is next to come, even more with this well-accomplished background.
Written by Jérémie "Djey" Mathis. Translated from French by Millenium.us.org.
The new expansion, Rise of Shadows, brought old archetypes back to life and made some new ones appear. Here are the decklist and guide of Tempo Mage. It is inspired by Apxvoid, master of the subject.
