There’s nothing quite like a following the development of a Blizzard Entertainment product. The endless waiting. The ironic ™ dropping at the end of any item of interest, be it news or what a community manager will have for breakfast. The years of reporting, press releases and hands-ons. StarCraft took over a decade to see a proper sequel. World of Warcraft expansions drop well after content droughts make California look like a flood plain. Or that Warcraft IV may come to fruition. But Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft has been reseting these expectations. Heroes of the Storm has to, but only in that incarnation.
After all, Heroes of the Storm, the first mixing of all the Blizzard universes – seriously, all of them – is the third crack at a Blizzard multiplayer online battle arena. A genre its seminal WarCraft III inspired. First announced as part of that StarCraft II arcade maker thingy, the game quickly outgrew its free mod status getting spun off into a standalone product dubbed Blizzard Heroes. That’s after Blizzard filed a lawsuit over the use of DotA2 by Valve.
After years in development the alpha label was dropped earlier this year. A Founder’s Pack purchase, of dubious value, enabled players to flood into the closed beta. Albeit temporarily. Shortly thereafter closed became open last month and here we are at launch on June 2, 2015. In less than six months the game went from the end of technical alpha to launch. Bravo, Blizzard. Bravo!
Bonus, the company is having a sale and pushing 25% more experience during this week!
Hit the jump to gander at our trove of HotS content, click for The Calling and take part in the launch livestream.
Watch live video from Heroes of the Storm on www.twitch.tv
- #MOBAMonday Twitch Show
- Matchingmaking in HotS (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 this Friday)
- The Thinking Behind Sylvanas as a Siege hero
- MOBAs Flourish at Gaming Conventions
- The Rise of Blizzard Watch
- HotS Leaves its Technical Alpha
- Samwise discussing the Lost Vikings. Oh, and Metallica!
- HotS Helps Make BlizzCon 2015 the Best BlizzCon Ever
- Jaina & Thrall – The Future of HotS
- The Nexus Delivers Endless Cosplay Options
- Murky Breaks the MOBA Archetype by Dieing. A lot.
- Heroes of the Storm Takes Center Stage at BlizzCon
- HotS Trademark Announcement
- StarCraft II Custom Maps & Editor