Hearthstone Fan Artists Imagine Diablo 3, StarCraft 2 Expansions

Blizzard's online card game Hearthstone allows players to become World of Warcraft characters. New fan art shows what the game would be like if it featured Diablo 3 or StatCraft 2 characters as well.

Dexistor371 over on DeviantArt produced a mock screenshot for a Diablo 3 version of Hearthstone. He calls the imagined game Soulstone: Heroes of Pandemonium. The art style is dark and gothic to fit Diablo 3.

"On the concept above you can see some random and crazy ideas just for showcase, such as three stolen souls, corrupted Paladin and one of Reaper of Souls creatures on Malthael's side, who can steal souls with his ability," says the artist. "On Diablo's side you can imagine something about claw weapon and special ability to spawn random Lesser evil with some random attack/health/ability, which can me dangerous for both - enemy and for Diablo itself. Another crazy idea may be corrupted Imperius on the Diablo's side, and some well known characters such as Azmodan or Butcher."

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"Also in the back side of Soulstone cards I've used artwork from Book of Tyrael (which also used for background outside of game arena). I think, it's the most similar in average concept with Hearthstone sign."

It's easy to imagine how a Diablo 3 counterpart to Hearthstone would work. Hearthstone is organized around nine character classes, each with its own set of cards. Diablo 3 has character classes as well so Soulstone could have the same structure as Hearthstone. They could also create a few new classes around other characters from Diablo lore, like Leah Cain or the Prime Evils.

A Russian artist, meanwhile, created concept art for a StarCraft 2 incarnation of Hearthstone. The lone image shows a match between Alexei Stukov and Tychus Findlay. Stukov has laid out a series of zerg minion cards, while Tychus has played a few Terran units.

The structure of a StarCraft 2 card game is harder to imagine than Hearthstone or Soulstone. The strategy series is based around three factions rather than character classes. Blizzard would have to do a little more work to fit SC2 into the Hearthstone mold.

The mock-ups for StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3 card games aren't just pipe dreams. Blizzard has suggested in the past that they would consider expanding Hearthstone with cards from other franchises. Such expansions could be years away, though.

"We're really focused on Warcraft for Hearthstone right now because it's such a rich universe," Hearthstone production director Jason Chayes told Gamespot at BlizzCon. "There's so much history there and so much lore, and we feel like we can continue to build a very rich additional set of cards for Hearthstone in the years to come just by staying within Warcraft. That's come up as an idea, what if we do Hearthstone with a different IP or something like that, but for right now our focus is just within Warcraft."

One decision they'll have to make is whether the Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo cards will be segregated from each other or mixed together in a cross-franchise battle royale. Again, though, that design choice is far, far away.