Developer: Activision Blizzard
Publisher: Activision Blizzard
Platforms: PC
Heroes of the Storm – Preview
Heroes of the Storm is Activision Blizzard’s latest project. Activision Blizzard is known for games like StarCraft, Diablo, World of Warcraft, the Warcraft series and Hearthstone. Now, while MOBA’s are becoming increasingly more popular, they have set out to make one of their own! Heroes of the Storm features all your favorite characters from all their games as playable characters! You can play anything from Murky the murloc to Diablo!
The game starts off with a simple tutorial that explains the basic of the game and the environment. The game is built around the “Nexus”. The Nexus is basically a world that combines universes from all of Activision Blizzard’s games into one. Movement and controls are pretty much what you can expect from a MOBA, right click for movement and attack, and QWER for abilities. However, this is where it stops from being your typical MOBA.
The game features a leveling system, progressing as you win or lose games. Instead of simply advancing a level and calling it quits, Heroes of the Storm gives you unique rewards and unlocks as you level. As of now, the unlocks range from level 2 to 10. Unlocking new game modes in early levels, and unlocking quests, talents and hero quests in the advanced levels. Currently, the level cap is 40, but this is constantly changing and it’s not known at what level you unlock ranked play. Leveling up also rewards gold, which can be used in the in-game shop in order to buy other heroes to play with. Skins, mounts, recolors and bundles are also available, but this is in the form of micro transactions and requires real money to unlock. Currently, the micro transactions are very expensive, but are not needed however since champions can be acquired without spending a dime. Note that this will also be a free to play game, requiring no money to be spent if you don’t want to! Micro transactions currently range from €4 for a cheap champion to €72 for a bundle with 10 heroes.
In the alpha there are 3 accessible game modes: Practice (playing with and against bots), cooperative (playing with other people against bots) and versus (playing with and against other players). Custom games and ranked games will also be integrated later on but are not available in alpha. Joining a game will of course require you to pick a hero, currently there are 27 heroes but they are continuing to create new ones! There is also a free hero rotation which changes each week, allowing you to play 6 different heroes. A random option is also available, and right now the random option seems to give you a random hero from all the heroes in game, not just the heroes that you own!
When you start the game, you will immediately notice some differences if you’re used to playing mainstream MOBA’s. There is no shop and no items can be used! Instead, the game uses a talent system every few levels, allowing you to enhance your hero through a few different options. There is also a mount, which allows you to move to the lanes faster after you’ve recalled to regain strength.
The leveling system is also very unique. Instead of awarding individual levels, the game uses team levels, requiring the full team to do their best in order to advance a level rather than 1 person being 5 levels ahead of the rest. Killing jungle mobs, lane creeps or enemy champions will fill an experience bar, if it’s full everyone in your team will advance a level.
Another major difference is the balance between PvE and PvP. A lot of attention has been put into the jungle and will reward your team with great strength if you take opportunity to use it well. Killing mobs in the jungle will not only reward you with experience, you can turn them to your team so that they will join your battle in lane and attack enemies! There are even maps that are mainly focused on completing objectives instead of plain hero killing.
The game currently features 4 levels: Cursed Hollow, Blackheart’s Bay, Dragon Shrine and Haunted Mines. Every map currently has unique gameplay features which can change the match entirely! The Cursed Hollow will have random spawns of tributes which you can kill and earn. Whenever you get 3 tributes, the other team becomes cursed, reducing enemy minion health to 1 (but can’t be killed) and disabling towers.
The Blackheart’s Bay is a map that encourages teamwork and tactical thinking. From time to time, chests with doubloons will spawn. Whenever this happens, the race is on to collect as many of them as possible! Whenever a team collects a certain amount of doubloons, they can hand them in at the middle of the map to a Pirate Ghost. If you pay him, his ghost ship will start shooting cannons at enemy structures.
The Dragon Shrine features 2 shrines: Moon and Sun. These shrines are placed on the top and the bottom of the map. When a team controls both shrines, they can take control of a Dragon Knight on the middle of the map, spewing fire or kicking an enemy out of the map.
The last map currently in the alpha build is the Haunted Mines. This map only features 2 lanes which you can assault but utilizes a fun twist of gameplay. At certain times, mines on the middle of both lanes will open. Entering them will teleport you to the mines, which are contested with minions and a boss. Killing these minions will reward the team that picks them up with skulls, and whenever the boss is killed, both teams get a Grave Golem. The strength of the golems are determined by the amount of skulls each team picks up. Whenever you summon a second golem, it spawns on the spot where the previous one dies, allowing for quick pushes if yours died at the enemy base.
Of course, each map features a base of both teams and some fortifications on the lanes. The objective is always to destroy the enemy base, whether you use the map’s advantages or just do plain PvP is up to you and your team!
Conclusion
Heroes of the Storm is a very fun game and has little bugs while still being in alpha stage. It features dynamic gameplay, maps and a big player/interest base. It differs a lot from typical MOBA’s, which is nice but it’s also risky, as it may not appeal to people who played other MOBA’s. E-sports around this game are still very questionable because the game features no item shop to differ your build from another. But as with all games still in development, time will tell!
Heroes of the Storm - Preview,
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[…] Note: As the preview already discussed many of the game modes, it is advised to read the preview first, which can be found by clicking here. […]