Heroes of the Storm Goes Open Beta
This week has already had a couple of big releases, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, House of Wolves for Destiny. It’s shaping up quite well and we’re not even halfway through the week. And now, Blizzard has just moved their own version of a MOBA, Heroes of the Storm, into open beta. Not that Blizzard refers to it officially as a MOBA, they prefer to call it a Hero Brawler. For those of you that were unable to get your hands on a code during closed beta, you can fret no more, all you have to do now is download the game client from Blizzard. It’s that simple. Just keep in mind that it’s not yet in its final release stages, a flood of new players on the servers may or may not cause some issues.
To ring in the new open beta, Blizzard has released a new Heroes of the Storm trailer to explain various elements of the game for new players. To those who are already familiar with MOBA’s like League of Legends or Dota you’ll pick it up quite quickly. There are a few tweaks that change the formula however; which lend towards the game’s official definition as a Hero Brawler. You’ll be playing as heroes from across Blizzard’s various games, battling across lanes against other players or AI to eventually destroy the other team’s core or palace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P-GdttRTcc#t=16
But, where Heroes of the Storm really differentiates itself is in its strategy; each map has to be interacted with differently in order to gain boons that will give your team a serious, but short, advantage. If you can collect enough gold and pay off the Pirate Lord on one map, you get his cannons; on another, you have to keep control of a shrine and you are given a giant laser that destroys the opponents buildings. Ignoring these, usually has disastrous results. The game play is heavily influenced by these objectives and it will be up to you to decide if you prefer this to traditional MOBA’s – or not. But with Heroes of the Storm finally going open beta now is the perfect time for you to try it out and actually find out for yourself whether Blizzard’s MOBA lives up to it’s hype before it releases on June 2nd.
Tags: Blizzard, Heroes of the Storm, MOBA