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Hearthstone open beta launches in North America

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The time for begging, hoping and forum-scouring for invites is over, and the time for unrestricted access to Hearthstone is here... for many of us, at least. Blizzard just launched its Warcraft-themed free-to-play card game into open beta in North America, with other regions rolling out "within the next few days," which means you'll see a big purple "Play Free Now" button on the Hearthstone website if you live in the US or Canada. If you've been waiting for your shot at card battling greatness, love Magic the Gathering, or just want to see what all the fuss is about, wait no longer.

Hearthstone's open beta rollout was still in the process of balancing the game , as we wrote yesterday.

Playing Hearthstone requires a Battle.net . We'd also recommend an iron will, or you may find yourself paying handfuls of real money for digital cards. Grab the beta client our most recent impressions of the game , too.

Wes Fenlon
Wes Fenlon
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before ing the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).