This game still exists, and it’s still fantastic
I still play and loveHeroes of the Storm.
It might be very low on Blizzard’s priority list right now, but the framework is still there, and it still plays like one of the most accessible MOBAs ever made. That much hasn’t changed. The content cadence may have slowed down (and one of the game’s leads may have left recently to work on Diablo IV), but it’s still very much worth getting into, even now. Blizzard doesn’t necessarily think so, though.
When the BlizzConline schedule dropped, we knew this reckoning was coming for Heroes. For the first time in ages, it had zero pure Heroes of the Stormpanels listed. No “what’s next,” no developer insight shows, nothing. Kyle Fergusson, co-host of the fantastic Into the Nexus podcast (the premiere show for Heroes right now), brought up several points in the below video that had begun to cross my mind after BlizzConline was done and dusted.
The Carbot “anniversary” video showcases the Overwatchcast ride in on a payload and murder the Heroes of the Stormcharacters, who appeared moments before. The HeroesTwitch channel, while understandably so, re-broadcast non-Heroesstreams. I was hoping for some semblance of Heroescontent at BlizzConline, but all we got was a scant “Overwatch Cosplay Pack” teaser image(that’s likely a Reinhardt skin for Johanna)and an off-broadcast tweet about how the cast is free to play until March 20.
It’s…a little much. There’s a lot of unrest right now in the MOBA community, and Blizzard could take advantage of it with a Heroes of the Stormresurgence. At least they aren’t shutting it down entirely….yet? I’ll take what I can get with Activision-Blizzard.