Yahoo Finance Activision to Release Galakrond's Awakening for Hearthstone
Activision Blizzard ATVI is set to release the highly anticipated solo adventure Galakrond’s Awakening for its free-to-play digital card game Hearthstone on Jan 21, 2020.
Galakrond’s Awakening will be the culmination of the year-long narrative, ‘Year of the Dragon’ that took place throughout Hearthstone in 2019.
Players who pre-purchase now will receive the entire Galakrond’s Awakening Solo Adventure along with a Golden Classic Pack of Hearthstone cards.
The new downloadable content is in line with Activision’s focus on releasing new and exciting content for its popular franchises. The company is benefiting from strong popularity of franchises like Call of Duty, Hearthstone, Overwatch and World of Warcraft.
Notably, shares of Activision have returned 27.5% in the past year, compared with the industry’s rally of 18.8% primarily driven by the solid portfolio and expanding player base.
Activision Blizzard, Inc Price and Consensus
Activision Blizzard, Inc price-consensus-chart | Activision Blizzard, Inc Quote
Galakrond’s Awakening Details
The story-driven experience includes 24 challenging missions and will take place across two campaigns.
The first one involves the players fighting as the League of E.V.I.L to carry out Archvillain Rafaam’s plot to resurrect Galakrond, the progenitor dragon.
In the other campaign, players will lead the League of Explorers into battle against the antagonists to foil their plans and save the world.
The DLC also marks a return to the game’s original solo adventure format, where players tackle a series of unique boss encounters with pre-built decks to earn 35 new collectible cards.
These cards can be added to the player’s existing standard and wild decks, adding new options to shake up the meta game.
Galakrond’s Awakening consists of four installments that will roll out weekly. Each installment will cost $6.99 or 700 in-game gold. The complete bundle can be bought for $19.99.
Activision Rides on Franchise Strength
Per Activision, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which released in October 2019, topped more than $600 million in sales within the first three days of its release. Moreover, the game has more total players and total hours played than any Call of Duty release in the last six years.
Moreover, Activision’s King division is benefiting from strength in Candy Crush franchise’s popular games like Candy Crush Saga and Candy Crush Friends Saga.
The company’s franchise strength is also expected to solidify its competitive position in the video game space, where it is facing stiff competition from the likes of Take Two TTWO, Nintendo NTDOY and Electronic Arts EA, among others.
EA released Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order in November 2019, which was a huge success. Moreover, the upcoming launch of EA’s Command and Conquer: Remastered and Star Wars: Rise to Power and Take Two’s Bioshock sequel is expected to intensify competition in the market.
Zacks Rank
Activision Blizzard currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
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