Hearthstone hits 50m players as Whispers of the Old Gods launches

As a brand new expansion launches for Hearthstone, Blizzard has revealed that over 50 million people are registered for the free-to-play card game.

This was announced by Blizzard CEO and co-founder Mike Morhaime in a blog post on Activision Blizzard’s investor relations portal, and indicates that 20 million people have signed up to play the collectible card game in the last year.

This comes as the firm releases its brand new expansion for Hearthstone, Whispers of the Old Gods. Not only does this introduce 134 new cards to the game;it also sees big changes for game as Blizzard rolls out Wild and Standard modes of playing the game.

The former lets players use any cards that have been released for the game; the latter limits player options to specific recent cards.

"Whispers of the Old Gods adds an exciting new set of creepy, corrupted cards to Hearthstone," said Morhaime.

"We can’t wait to see how creative players are with the ancient evil of the Old Gods in their hands."