The game features several modes of play, including casual and ranked matches, drafted arena battles, and single-player adventures.

The game uses a freemium model of revenue, meaning players can play for free or pay to acquire additional card packs or content.

[20][21][22] Adventures featured smaller number of cards, around 30, which could only be earned by completing multiple tiers of story-based challenges and boss fights in single-player mode.

[23] Starting in 2021, smaller mini-sets were released among the three yearly expansions, each set featuring a few dozen cards centered around a specific theme as a replacement for Adventures.

[31] Blizzard executives, around 2008, had considered that their revenue was primarily sustained on three well-established properties (the Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo series), but saw the rise of small independent developers with highly successful projects, representing a shift in the traditional video game model.

Principal designers Dodds and Ben Brode remained developing Hearthstone, and the two were able to quickly iterate many ideas using both the prototype and physical replicas to fine-tune the game mechanics.

Dodds stated that "it's important that you don't have to spend a lot of time understanding the rules to play the game, the depth grows as you go.

[29] From the beginning, the game was designed to be played solely online and to mimic the feel of physical cards to make it more accessible to new players.

Dodds found that past attempts to digitize physical card games by other companies left areas they felt were lacking, and wanted to improve on that experience.

The boards on which the cards are played can be interacted with in various ways, such as virtually petting a dragon, although the feature is purely for entertainment and has no effect on gameplay.

Hamilton Chu, the executive producer of Hearthstone, stated that "a key thing for us was focusing on [the user]... playing the game", and that trading and market features would dilute this experience.

[34] Blizzard wanted to do things such as avoid a free market where card values could fluctuate, discourage cheating methods like bots and duping, reduce the unauthorized third party sales (all against the terms of use), and keep the profit derived from the game for the company.

[35] The game's name, Hearthstone, was meant to imply to a close gathering of friends by a hearth, a goal of what they want players to feel.

Hamilton Chu, the former executive producer for Hearthstone, stated that Blizzard intends to support the game for ten to twenty years.

Blizzard had originally envisioned to release Expansions in a staged approach as to not drastically jar the player community, creating the Adventure concept for the first post-release addition with Curse of Naxxramas.

Development of the themes and mechanics for each Expansion and Adventure are often based on the current atmosphere around the Hearthstone community, according to senior designer Mike Donais.

[40] Dodds equated the Tavern Brawl mode as a place to try experimental mechanics that may later be introduced to the game, as well as to offer gameplay that varies significantly from other areas of play within Hearthstone.

The introduction of the Standard vs. Wild formats in April 2016 was an issue that the developers knew since Hearthstone's initial release that they would need to address; according to Brode, as new cards were introduced to the game, they recognized that new players would start to find the game inaccessible, while adjusting the balance of the meta-game of which cards from previous expansions had proven over- or underused.

[44] The "Hall of Fame" format also allows Blizzard to move Classic cards that have been nerfed (purposely weakened) previously to be un-nerfed and moved into the "Hall of Fame"; Blizzard found that players using Wild decks were impacted significantly by these nerfs and this approach would allow those deck formats to still thrive without disrupting Standard.

[48] Hearthstone was first announced with the subtitle Heroes of Warcraft at Penny Arcade Expo in March 2013 for Windows, Mac, and iPad, with an expected release date in the same year.

[65] Widely advertised on various World of Warcraft websites, this promotion encourages players to try Hearthstone, and marked the first significant crossover implemented between Blizzard games.

Since then, multiple promotions have been implemented in other Blizzard titles such as Diablo III: Reaper of Souls,[66] Heroes of the Storm,[67] StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void [68] and Overwatch.

[72][73] The Boomsday Project, Rastakhan's Rumble, Rise of Shadows, Saviors of Uldum, Descent of Dragons, Ashes of Outland, Scholomance Academy, Madness at the Darkmoon Faire, and Forged in the Barrens expansions each offered an alternate hero portrait as a bonus for ordering the largest preorder bundle: Mecha-Jaraxxus for Warlock, King Rastakhan for Shaman, Madame Lazul for Priest, Elise Starseeker for Druid, Deathwing for Warrior, Lady Vashj for Shaman, Kel'Thuzad for Mage, N'Zoth for Warlock, and Hamuul Runetotem for Druid respectively.

[76] To promote the Kobolds & Catacombs set, Blizzard released "The Light Candle", a live-action short spoofing films from Jim Henson of the 1980s while its characters are exploring a dungeon.

Blizzard hosted an exhibition tournament in November 2013 called "The Innkeeper's Invitational" with three decks each of a different class, featuring several well-known gamers such as Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski, Octavian "Kripparrian" Morosan, Jeffrey "TrumpSC" Shih and Byron "Reckful" Bernstein.

The Hearthstone World Championship 2014 featured a total prize pool of $250,000, and the American winner, James "Firebat" Kostesich, received $100,000.

[83][84] The second Hearthstone World Championship was held at BlizzCon 2015 on November 7 with players selected in a similar way in the previous year and it was played in the best-of-five conquest format; the Swede winner, Sebastian "Ostkaka" Engwall, received $100,000.

[88] The fifth Hearthstone World Championship took place in April 2019 and was held in Taipei; the winner was Norwegian Casper "Hunterace" Notto that received $250,000.

The game was praised for its simplicity, gameplay pace, and attention to detail along with being free-to-play, while the lack of actual card trading between players and any form of tournament mode was pointed out as the major shortcomings.

[107] Reception for Goblins vs Gnomes has also been positive, with Game Informer writing "the first expansion set for Hearthstone is a major step forward for the already accessible and fun game", and awarding it a score of 9.25/10,[108] while Eurogamer scored it an 8/10, writing "whatever happens to Hearthstone in the future, the new content has stumbled a little by strengthening certain deck archetypes that needed no such help [...] it's re-introduced a thoughtfulness to play that's been absent for too long.