Blizzard has been teasing its fans for months now with the hint of the MOBA they are planning to release. Originally under the name Blizzard DOTA and then Blizzard All Stars, they have finally released a new teaser trailer made by a long-time fan and YouTube animator to announce… the name is now Heroes of the Storm.
And that’s all, folks!
The animation is kinda cute, and the appeal to fans of Blizzard’s three main franchises is obvious (particularly where the logo is first revealed with World of Warcraft‘s soundtrack playing) but the actual information given by the teaser is even less than one would expect in most teaser trailers. We have no date to even guess when we will get more information.
More to the point from my perspective, however, is the same problem I have expressed before with previous newcomers to the MOBA genre: there is still no indicator that Heroes of the Storm will be bringing anything even remotely new to the genre. They have shown us the idea of siege heroes, but that actually seems contrary to a lot of what is enjoyable in watching games.
People do not enjoy watching someone sit around and hit a tower from outside its range, they enjoy seeing teams tearing into each other, picking away and trying to grab individuals while wearing down towers for the final push. Backdooring is a viable strategy, but these siege heroes don’t even seem particularly good at that. They mostly just appear to be heroes you cannot leave alone in a lane for long periods of time, which as a hero concept sounds like something that looks much better in concept than it will in-game.
Hopefully we will see more on this game at Blizzcon this year. It would be ironic if Blizzard’s entry onto the MOBA scene ended up populated almost exclusively by World of Warcraft subscribers, but such is looking more and more like a definite possibility.
