Did Reddit invent a Hearthstone bug?

Hearthstone’s developers have been swamped with furious complaints over the past couple days after redditors discovered a bug in a controversial new feature. The only problem? The bug doesn’t actually appear to exist.

The game’s newest add-on allows players to switch into a new skin for the warrior class. The skin costs $10, and includes only a new portrait, hero power animation, and sound clips.

When the cards Cairne Bloodhoof or Vol’jin are played against the original Warrior hero, Garrosh, they have unique interactions based on Warcraft lore. You would expect, however, that those two cards would revert to their normal battlecry when played against the new hero Magni Bronzebeard. That was supposedly not the case, according to a legion of users on the Hearthstone subreddit.

“$10 and they can’t be bothered to change even the sound clips…. yeah that’s why I’m not spending money on that shit.”

“fucking disgusting.”

“a major fuck up.”

Those are just some of the comments targeting developers after a Reddit users reported the bug.

More than 5,000 upvotes later and the report was being treated as fact simply based on its  popularity. Even popular Hearthstone personality Octavian “Kripparrian” Morosan reported the incorrect interactions in his latest video, criticising the implementation of the new hero portraits based on this.

The thing is, no one has yet been able to produce any actual evidence this is happening.

We did our own testing, and as you can see for yourself everything goes as expected:

Blizzard has also been unable to replicate the error. Producer Yong Woo took to Reddit to ask for evidence of the bug. No one has yet provided any.

Since Blizzard got involved in the situation, Reddit users appear to have changed their tune—new posts now largely criticize the subreddit for being swept up in the popular tide of criticism. The subreddit was so credulous about the bug perhaps because the new hero skins have been so unpopular, with many fans unhappy that such a substance-less addon is so relatively expensive—and that the developers are releasing new cosmetic features even as fundamental problems with the game remain unsolved.

Image via Blizzard