Blizzard’s mash-up MOBA Heroes of the Storm has been released

By Kris Wouk Published June 3, 2015

heroes of the storm silence option — Image used with permission by copyright holder

If you’ve been playing the game in any of its various beta forms, it may seem that Blizzard’s Heroes of the Storm has been out for some time now, but that wasn’t technically the case.

Yesterday Blizzard officially released the game, and it’s tempting to call it the “finished” version, even though games of this type are never really finished. Like most of Blizzard’s other recent games, Heroes of the Storm will continue to receive tweaks as well as new content throughout its lifetime.

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“Players battled each other in over 100 million matches during testing, and we saw tons of surprising strategies and insane last-minute wins—we can’t wait to see what else players come up with now that Heroes of the Storm is officially live,” Blizzard Entertainment CEO Mike Morhaime said in the press release announcing the game’s release.

To celebrate the launch, Blizzard has rewards ready for players who jump into the game immediately. Play Heroes of the Storm within the first week and you’ll unlock a special in-game portrait. To give players a head start on seeing everything the game has to offer, experience boosts will also be in effect for the first three weeks.

Experience doesn’t affect your strength while fighting in the game’s Battlegrounds, but it does allow players to unlock new skills and different skins for their characters. Leveling up both characters and your main account also results in rewards in the form of in-game gold at set levels.

This in-game currency can be used to unlock new characters, skins, mounts, and other various boosts. Of course, this is a free-to-play game, so gold can also be purchased with real-world money.

This Saturday, June 6, Blizzard will be hosting a live steam on its YouTube channel to celebrate Heroes of the Storm going live. The event will be streamed from the YouTube studios, and will offer a sneak peek at new content.

To start playing the game yourself, head over to the official website and download the official client. The game is available for both Windows and Mac.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…

Gaming

2022’s biggest video game reveals have been a bummer so far

Player with handgun in Call of Duty: Warzone.

The announcement of 2022's Call of Duty was always going to feel weird. Over the last year, Activision Blizzard has been scrutinized over horrific sexual harassment allegations, turned Call of Duty: Warzone into a glitchy and bloated mess, and was acquired by Microsoft. But I wasn't expecting its reveal to be this sloppy.
Activision Blizzard previously mentioned that Infinity Ward was making a new Call of Duty. Then, at 1 p.m. ET on February 11, enthusiast Call of Duty websites and content creators posted that Activision told them that Modern Warfare 2 and a reworked Warzone with a sandbox mode are on the way. There was no official word on these claims for about 15 minutes, but Activision eventually confirmed them... in the footnotes of a blog post. Its reveal lacked excitement, was confusing, and dodged the biggest questions surrounding Activision Blizzard.
Six weeks into 2022, this is just the latest example of a AAA publisher announcing a huge game with little fanfare. But why have AAA publishers dropped the pomp and circumstance of their game reveals?
Activision wants you to know that 2022's Call of Duty is a sequel to 2019's Modern Warfare and on a new engine. Image used with permission by copyright holder
For the fans
Previously, a trailer, press release, and detailed info about what players could expect accompanied Call of Duty game announcements. In recent years, it even happened inside Call of Duty: Warzone! We weren't so lucky this time and had to deal with a flurry of enthusiasts and leakers claiming to have new information about the game with no good way to verify its truthfulness.
Earlier this week, there was reportedly a call where Activision and Infinity Ward revealed the new information on this game, but it seems to have been attended almost solely by enthusiast sites and content creators. Even the most prominent gaming sites like IGN and GameSpot didn't seem privy to the news beforehand.
This announcement was made by the fans before Activision even confirmed it. Based on the coverage from those in attendance, it doesn't seem like content creators asked the tough questions about the status of Activision Blizzard's workplace, how the acquisition affects these games, and the reasoning behind Activision Blizzard's decision making (perhaps they did and Activision refused to comment, but we'll likely never know).
By announcing it this way, Activision Blizzard circumvents having to answer hard questions about the company's current state, gets free press from its fans, and gets ahead of the leaks, reports, and rumors that have occurred since the Microsoft acquisition. Activision built a mostly positive -- if oddly rolled out -- reveal narrative for the new Call of Duty that doesn't have much substance.
While other announcements this year haven't felt as malicious, they still lacked a certain flair that we've come to expect.
Rockstar announced Grand Theft Auto 6 in the footnotes of a GTA series blog post. Respawn Entertainment announced three new Star Wars games, including a sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, through a tweet and press release light on additional details. Even Blizzard did it just a few weeks ago with a survival game blog post reveal that called the game "unannounced" in its announcement. None of them had trailers (Crytek got this right with Crysis 4). AAA games are being announced very early with minimal assets and information, making these unveils much less impactful.
This is the only asset EA released alongside its Respawn Entertainment Star Wars announcement. Image used with permission by copyright holder
For the company
As I previously discussed when Rockstar announced GTA 6, these reveals aren't really about the fans -- they are about the investors and potential hires. Activision first discussed 2022's Call of Duty in a financial results report. GTA 6, the Respawn Star Wars deal, and the Blizzard survival game were announced ahead of earnings reports from their respective companies. The latter two were tied to recruitment calls for their respective developers.
The gaming industry is in the middle of an acquisition craze, and studios are reportedly struggling to recruit great talent. Announcing video games in a nonchalant way helps address both of those issues. Games that are almost guaranteed to be hits please current investors and entice potential buyers. Meanwhile, some developers might be more willing to jump ship from their current employer and work for someone else if they know exactly what they're working on. If some fans get hyped and don't ask tough questions, that's just a positive side effect.
These publishers are putting the bare minimum into reveals and yielding the greatest results. And if this strategy generates enough buzz and keeps working, this might become the norm outside of events like E3, or individual showcases like Nintendo Directs, where fans expect game developers to go all out.
I'm not frustrated because I'm not getting flashy reveals. It's that these announcements all seem more focused on drip-feeding the minimal amount of info so that studios can drive up profits, circumvent criticism, and please investors without sharing anything of substance. As a fan of games, that makes it challenging to care about big projects that should have me excited.

Gaming

Activision Blizzard plans mobile Warcraft, next Call of Duty

Warcraft 3 Reforged main character holds a hammer and stares at the camera.

Activision Blizzard plans to release a new Call of Duty game and mobile Warcraft game in 2022, according to a February 2022 financial results report.
As part of that report, the company went over what investors could expect from Activision, Blizzard, and King in 2022. Notably, a Warcraft game for mobile phones is officially teased for the first time: "Blizzard is planning substantial new content for the Warcraft franchise in 2022, including new experiences in World of Warcraft and Hearthstone, and getting all-new mobile Warcraft content into players’ hands for the first time."
We've yet to learn the title of this game or see it in action. It'll be the first Warcraft game released since the disappointing Warcraft 3: Reforged in 2020, and the second to hit iOS and Android, following Hearthstone.
In the same report, Activision discussed Call of Duty in great detail. While the teased Call of Duty game is still untitled, this financial results report and a tweet from Infinity Ward heavily suggest that it's Modern Warfare 2. "Development on this year’s premium and Warzone experiences is being led by Activision’s renowned Infinity Ward studio," the results state. "The team is working on the most ambitious plan in franchise history, with industry-leading innovation and a broadly appealing franchise setting." Shortly afterward, Infinity Ward tweeted, "A new generation of Call of Duty is coming soon. Stay frosty."
https://twitter.com/InfinityWard/status/1489346822208249861
"Stay frosty" is an iconic line of John "Soap" MacTavish, a classic Modern Warfare character that was only teased in the 2019 reboot. Considering that 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is widely regarded as the series' best game in recent memory, it's not a surprise that the Modern Warfare 2 rumors are true. A report from Bloomberg claims that this game will still release on PlayStation consoles, which makes sense as the Microsoft acquisition isn't expected to be complete until June 30, 2022.
Despite the acquisition being in progress, developers fighting to unionize, and the delay of Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV, this financial results report confirms that we can still expect new games from Activision Blizzard in 2022.

Gaming

The FTC is reviewing Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal

Price kneels on grass in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

Microsoft's plan to acquire Activision Blizzard may be hitting a roadblock soon. According to a report from Bloomberg, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will review this landmark games' industry deal.

This $68.7 billion acquisition of the now controversial makers of Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and more has resulted in many questions being asked by fans of the gaming industry. One of the biggest of those inquiries is whether or not it's even legal under monopolistic and anti-trust laws. That question will be answered by the FTC before Microsoft's deal clears by the end of fiscal Q4 2023.