Now updated with a little clock-tinkering accuracy.
UPDATED 5th APRIL 2017:
Blizzard has confirmed that the Journey to Un’Goro expansion will indeed launch on Thursday 6th April 2017. Based on previous expansion releases, we expect Un’Goro to go live at 6pm PST, with a UK/EU launch nearer midnight local time. Please note this is speculation, however, and Blizzard may change its rollout timetable this time around.
While you wait, we’ve got a round-up of the best Un’Goro Legendary cards and a round-up of all the Un’Goro decks you need to know about as well! You’ll find loads of deck lists and essential guides from there.
ORIGINAL STORY 28th MARCH 2017
A little bit of tinkering around with system clocks has revealed that the release date for Journey to Un’Goro is almost certainly Thursday 6th April. That’s just over a week away from the time this update was published on the site.
When you typically pre-order Hearthstone expansion packs, you’ll see them hidden behind a little tease message explaining when you’ll actually be able to open them. That’s again the case with the Un’Goro pre-order promotion, and if you pop your system clock forward to the 6th, the artwork changes and they appear to be available.
Note, however, that you can’t actually unlock your pre-ordered packs until the expansion goes live at Blizzard‘s end!
ORIGINAL STORY
The next Hearthstone expansion is called Journey to Un’Goro and will be released in early April. As soon as we have a firmer date than this, we will update this news story.
You can find our original reporting on the Journey to Un’Goro release date a little further down the page. Looks like we were pretty close with our detective work!
Journey to Un’Goro coverage:
- 1. Cards – Journey to Un’Goro cards
- 2. Best Legendaries – The best Journey to Un’Goro Legendary cards
- 3. Quests – Journey to Un’Goro Quest guide
- 4. Adapt – Journey to Un’Goro Adapt guide
- 5. Wallpapers – Journey to Un’Goro Wallpapers
- 6. Daily Rewards – Journey to Un’Goro Daily Rewards
- 7. Guide – Journey to Un’Goro guide
- 8. Year of the Mammoth Rotation – Standard rotation guide
ORIGINAL STORY
It’s widely believed that the next Hearthstone expansion will be called the Lost Secrets of Un’Goro, and – given some recent activity on game director Ben Brode’s Twitter account – we’re pretty sure we’re going to get some hard information on the new card set very early on this week.
When will the next Hearthstone expansion actually be released though? Although the game is ditching Adventures in favour of three full-blooded expansion releases each year going forwards, we thought it would be useful to look at the historical release pattern for new content for the game. Perhaps from here we can make an educated guess at the Un’Goro release date.
Hearthstone expansion and Adventure release dates:
Without further ado, then, here are all of the release dates for the game’s previous expansion and Adventure releases:
- Curse of Naxxramas: July 22nd 2014
- Goblins vs Gnomes: December 8th 2014
- Blackrock Mountain: April 2nd 2015
- The Grand Tournament: August 24th 2015
- League of Explorers: November 12th 2015
- Whispers of the Old Gods: April 26th 2016
- One Night in Karazhan: August 11th 2016
- Mean Streets of Gadgetzan: December 1st 2016
Let’s ignore the first two card releases for now. The game was released in the very same year, and exceeded everyone’s expectations in terms of popularity. The launch must surely have had an impact on the release schedule for that year.
In both 2015 and 2016, the first expansion was released in April, while the second was released in August. There are a few weeks separating the release date of the third expansion though, and so they’re split between November and December in their respective years.
That April showing for the first expansion seems like a good lead to follow for the release of the next card set though. Blizzard‘s preference is to release content for the game on a Tuesday in the US, and it’s worth nothing that there are four Tuesdays in April this year.
For that reason, we can feel reasonably confident in saying that the Lost Secrets of Un’Goro expansion will released on either the 4th, 11th, 18th or 25th April 2016. Given the rather stale state of the metagame right now, we’d put money on either the 4th or the 11th. It may even be pulled forwards from the earliest of these dates given Hearthstone’s current condition.
Now, of course, it may turn out that Un’Goro is a red herring and the first expansion will turn out to be something difference altogether. As soon as we hear more from the developers, we’ll update this article immediately – expect big news on Hearthstone’s next steps at some point on Monday.
