Hearthstone director’s new studio is working on a Marvel game

Last year, Ben Brode made the decision to leave Blizzard behind, taking a few friends from the Hearthstone team along with him. Together, they formed a new studio called ‘Second Dinner’, things have been quiet on that front for a while but this week, we started hearing some new things. Second Dinner has managed to acquire the Marvel license for its first game.

The studio was able to secure a $30 million investment from NetEase (Activision Blizzard’s biggest partner in China), that money has been used to obtain the Marvel license, move the studio to a new location in California and will fund development along the way. Not much is known about the game itself at this point, aside from the fact that a wide range of cast members from the Marvel Universe will appear. This includes obscure picks, in addition to fan favourites.

According to Ben Brode, this game has been in development for around six months now and play-testing has begun. No specific platforms have been announced for this game but depending on what type of game this ends up being, we could see PC and mobile targeted.

Given NetEase’s involvement, we can expect this game to include strong ties to microtransactions. If this ends up being a Marvel-themed CCG, then we can probably expect a similar business model to Hearthstone, where players get in for free, can grind for currency or just buy card packs outright.

KitGuru Says: Right now, I’m picturing a Marvel version of Hearthstone, but I could be wrong. After all, just because that formula was very successful for this team once, doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in exploring other genres.

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