Hearthstone’s next expansion invites us to a murder mystery party in August

Fantasy CCG Hearthstone is asking players to solve a macabre mystery in its next expansion, Murder At Castle Nathria, due out on August 2nd. Prepare to venture once again into Warcraft’s home of the afterlife, the Shadowlands. Just remember to grab your rhyming dictionary and your fanciest deerstalker before you watch the trailer below.

Murder At Castle Nathria is Hearthstone’s 21st expansion, introducing 135 new cards to acquire. The mystery centres around the death of Sire Denathrius, who was the final boss in the Castle Nathria raid from World Of Warcraft’s Shadowlands expansion. See, Denathrius had invited 10 Legendary guests to a dinner party at the castle, and every one of them had the means and motive to do him in. You’ll have to assist detective Murloc Holmes and his companion Watfin to reveal the killer – through the medium of Hearthstone cards, obvs.

The new expansion brings with it an equally new card type dubbed ‘locations’. Location cards give the expansion a bit of a Cluedo theme, representing where each class claims their suspect was at the time of the crime. They have abilities that can be played for free on your turn, but you’ll need to pay an initial cost to get them on the battlefield.

Murder At Castle Nathria also introduces the ‘infuse’ keyword, which lets cards absorb life-giving anima as your friendly minions shuffle off the mortal coil. Reach enough anima and they’ll morph into more powerful forms. There are more details about the expansion's features in the announcement video, which you can watch here.

Blizzard have scheduled a livestream on their Twitch and YouTube channels for this Friday, July 1st at 7pm BST/8pm BST/11am PST to demo the new location card type, if you’re interested. Blizzard’s parent company Activision Blizzard are still wrangling with lawsuits that allege a toxic workplace culture. Microsoft are also in the process of buying Activision Blizzard for $69 billion (£56 billion).

The Murder At Castle Nathria expansion comes to Hearthstone on August 2nd. You’ll be able to download it to play for free via Battle.net.