Blizzard Announces Serious Monetization Changes To Hearthstone’s Battleground Season And Players Are Not Amused

Blizzard is preparing to drop Battlegrounds Season 2 in Hearthstone and it’s coming with some changes, changes that players are less than excited about. Okay, that may be an understatement. They’re mad.

On August 30, Blizzard will be dropping Patch 24.2. When it hits, it will introduce a new progression track specific to Battlegrounds. This will be separate from the Hearthstone-wide track and this is the bad part. There will be a secondary premium track that will cost players money, but this isn’t a simple matter of buying packs. Instead, it’s buying a premium currency with which to buy the Battle Pass. The expected result, as with all things “premium currency” related, is that players will be suckered into buying more than they need because they can’t just buy packs for a specific amount of real-world currency anymore.

Of course, there is a free track and, as stated on MassivelyOP, Blizzard claims "to be giving love" to the free-to-play mode. The company lists improvements, missions, cosmetics, and more, but these are also tied to the Season’s progression season, meaning players are going to have to throw money at it in order to keep up with everyone else throwing money at it.

The overall refrain on Reddit is that the game is no longer free-to-play. The feeling is compounded by the fact that regular Hearthstone currency will no longer work on the Battleground...because of course it won't.