SolForge officially launching next week with a ranked ladder and a brand new UI

It can be hard to keep track of all the free-to-play digital card games popping up lately, but its omission from Overwatch was pretty surprising. To many, adding a ranked ladder to SolForge will be a final step in making it a complete game, which is one of the reasons Stone Blade wanted to include it at launch.

Gary told me that SolForge has been in development for about five years, raising funding on Kickstarter back in 2012, but that with games like this, you re never really done. The beta label was mainly used for so long to make it clear that there were still big features missing, but developement isn t going to suddenly grind to a halt when the game leaves early access.

SolForge has already received six card expansions, with a seventh to be added on launch. What s more, the pace may quicken now that other features like the new UI and ranked play are done. We thought this rebuild would take six months, and it s taken a year, Gary said, so that means we haven t had new card content in those six months. Because of that delay, the next set of cards has been in testing longer than any other set they ve made, waiting for launch day to arrive.

It seems crazy to try and compete as a digital card game in a world where Hearthstone reigns so supreme, but Gary firmly believes that its rampant success is actually beneficial to the entire card game community, despite presenting a goliath-like competitor. It s a huge undertaking. We re competing against people like Blizzard, who has hundreds of millions of dollars to throw at this and hugely experienced teams, Gary said. And us, it s like five guys in my living room. We re trying to make it work. But he doesn t have dreams toppling Blizzard to the ground. Are we going to be as big as Hearthstone? Probably not, but that s not my goal. My goal is to make a great game that people love.

SolForge's focus on tournament play, its unique game mechanics, and the ability to download SolForge on Steam right now.

Update: The Article originally said the developer of SolForge was Stoneblade Studios, not Stone Blade Entertainment. This has been corrected.