In 2017, Hearthstone players were introduced to the mysterious Un'Goro Crater, filled with dangerous dinosaurs, powerful elementals, and the people of the Tortollan race. Now, eight years later, Hearthstone returns to the crater in its latest expansion, The Lost City of Un'Goro. The game's developers wanted to expand the lore of the Un'Goro Crater while honoring the massively popular original Journey to Un'Goro expansion.
In a conversation with The Best War Games, Hearthstone Senior Game Designer Cora Georgiou and Lead Designer Edward Goodwin both named Journey to Un'Goro as one of their favorite expansions. "We remember it very fondly, and we knew that the players really loved it as well," said Georgiou. They were thrilled to get to continue the story of Un'Goro Crater and its Tortollan inhabitants, as well as bringing back fan-favorite mechanics such as Quests.
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The Lost City Of Un'Goro Came From A Desire To Tell A New Tortollan Story
Georgiou explained that the Hearthstone team had been considering a new story centered around the Tortollan race for many years. The Tortollans were actually created for Hearthstone first as part of Journey to Un'Goro, and later made appearances in World of Warcraft as well.
Initially, the mini-expansion Perils in Paradise, which was released in 2024, was meant to include a Tortollan element, but this was scrapped when the team realized they had a full expansion's worth of story. When it was decided that Lost City would be a full expansion and would feature the return of the Tortollans, Georgiou and the team drew on journal entries written as part of Journey to Un'Goro:
"One of the passages from that journal entry said something along the lines of "Umbra took us to the base of Fire Mountain and said, 'Look up to see the truth.'" And we were like, what in the world could that possibly mean, other than there's a city in the volcano in the middle of the Un'Goro Crater?"
The Expansion Blends Returning Favorites With New Content
Wanting to honor the original Journey to Un'Goro set, the team brought back Quests, a mechanic that initially originated in that expansion. "When Journey to Un'Goro came out, Quests were one of the greatest, most exciting things that Hearthstone had ever done," Georgiou reminisced. The team took Lost City as an opportunity to expand on Quests, using lessons they had learned from the Quests featured in Saviors of Uldum and Reunited in Stormwind. The new expansion's quests feature a variety of tasks and rewards ranging from powerful minions to unique weapons and more.
In addition, several new elements will be added to Hearthstone with the release of The Lost City of Un'Goro, including Maps and the new "Kindred" keyword, which was inspired by the Elementals who call the Un'Goro Crater home. Georgiou explained that they wanted to reference Journey to Un'Goro but not just feel like they were rehashing what they had already done in 2017:
"[We needed to] make it so this set feels robust and full of life and also like it is its own unique entity...that's where Kindred comes in, and where Maps and Stories come in, which are referential to Journey to Un'Goro but also have their own unique new identity to them."
The Lost City of Un'Goro is both accessible to newer Hearthstone players and filled with references to the beloved 2017 expansion that those who played Journey to Un'Goro will likely enjoy. It is a lore-rich adventure, inspired by classic adventure stories such as the legends of El Dorado and the Indiana Jones series, that brings exciting new elements to Hearthstone while also revisiting many of the classics.
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