The MOBA market has been almost entirely locked in a 1v1 deathmatch for over a decade now. Two absolute titans of the gaming industry, League of Legends and Dota 2, command huge playerbases, draw immense crowds to annual tournaments and consequently leave little room for a third name in the arena. There have been times where other MOBAs had managed to garner decently sized playerbases, such as Heroes of Newerth or Smite. Perhaps the most notable third game to ever compete in the space was Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm.
I'm a long time admitted Blizzard shill. I've played World of Warcraft off and on since 2007, having played Warcraft III and Starcraft before that. Most of my life has been tied up in Blizzard's games. I think for the last several years, they've been in a very rough spot, but they're showing signs that maybe they've plugged the holes in the ship and are bailing the water. Heroes of the Storm was one of my very favorite games of theirs and easily my favorite MOBA. I love most of the characters from Blizzard's games, so a title like Heroes, was tailor made for me. I also thought the game had a really decent community; it never felt like anyone was taking the game too seriously. But, after a few years of popularity and success, they decided to pull the plug on the game, because it had not reached the absurdly lofty goals of having League or Dota 2 player counts. As of July 2022, active development had ceased on the game, and it remains in a state of "maintenance mode," where it receives regular balancing updates, but no new content.
So, after nearly three years of being in a limbo state, you're probably wondering if the game is even still alive. While I myself haven't played in a while, I've read that you can still find matches very quickly in 2025, and with the monthly balance updates, it does help the playerbase feel like their criticism could still be heeded by someone over at Blizzard who is still adjusting the game. The Heroes of the Storm subreddit is quite active still and there remains a dream that the game will someday get something noteworthy, like a character or a map or new skins. It is thought that the game might still have somewhere in the low tens of thousands of players, so that's obviously still nowhere near the big dawgs of the genre, but its also not unremarkable.
I haven't played League of Legends in a few years. I hated how long the matches lasted, and that you would be punished for bailing on a non-ranked match, even if you could tell your team was going to lose. The playerbase for League is also famously horrible, and for good reason; it has some of the most toxic players that I've ever seen. I don't have any firsthand experience with this, but the rumor is that League, despite Arcane's massive success, is in a downward trajectory right now. If that's true, the most obvious result is probably that Dota 2 will gain players, but fans of Heroes of the Storm are hoping to see refugee League players come to Blizzard's beleaguered title. There's some talk of popular streamers picking up Heroes again, and it does look like the game's Twitch viewership is slightly up, so maybe there might be some truth to this.
I want to break down some moves that I feel like Blizzard, who is now owned by the industry giant Microsoft, should take to give Heroes of the Storm a fighting chance.
The most obvious, and likely the most cost effective move that Blizzard/Microsoft should take is to finally pry this title off of Battle.net. Blizzard's proprietary and iconic launcher has a long, storied history with online gaming, but it is not as important as it used to be. Steam is far and away the most successful PC gaming marketplace and environment, and getting Heroes on that platform should be priority number one. They need to make a short hype video to remind folks what Heroes of the Storm even is and that it is available on Steam and get it featured on the Steam home page. Those are easy moves for a company as huge as Microsoft. It just takes some minimal effort and probably some money exchanging hands to get the game featured on Steam. They should also make sure that Heroes has cross-play and cross-progression with the Battle.net version, so if people pivot to the Steam version, they keep all of their skins, characters and progress. In my opinion, this is the non-negotiable move if they want any growth at all in this game.
Another easy move that Blizzard could take advantage of is bringing back the esports scene for Heroes of the Storm. Start by pushing the game on Twitch, maybe create Drops for choice streamers, so that fans are incentivized to watch the game and get in-game loot, even if that in-game loot is for Hearthstone or World of Warcraft; just do something to get eyes on the game again. If the streamer push is successful, start incrementally bringing back some sort of an esports program for the game. You don't have to go whole hog like you did for Overwatch, like creating a full league with a dozen teams, but to just make a national championship or something could be a great move for the game. Let your fans do some of the heavy lifting and marketing for you.
Now for the less likely, but popular moves that they could make to absolutely reignite interest in the title. A console port could be a great move. I'm aware that this would certainly cost money, but when you're Microsoft, you are in a uniquely "flooded with cash" position that makes these kinds of costs trivial. If they got Heroes of the Storm a bespoke console port, with controller and mouse & keyboard support, they would likely be the console MOBA leader in the space. Smite is really the only noteworthy MOBA on consoles, so this would be a much more appropriate competition, compared to trying to go up against League of Legends or Dota 2. If a console port happened and they launched it on Xbox and PlayStation, with cross-play between the two, this would be a big move that could cause a rush of new players.
Lastly is an obvious move, but probably the least likely to happen. Restart the engines on this game and slowly start trickling fresh content to it. You already have players that have hung around for years since you unceremoniously pulled the plug on this title. Reward them with fresh content. They would rejoice for anything. Even if you had a skeleton crew working on one new hero, and one new map a year, that would still at least give the game a pulse and pick up some interest in the game. Some immensely popular Blizzard titles have come out since Heroes died, so you have characters to pull from. Inarius and Lilith from Diablo IV, who already bizarrely made an appearance in Call of Duty, are two home run options for new characters. Overwatch, even though it is getting its lunch eaten by Marvel Rivals, has new popular characters that could receive the Heroes of the Storm treatment. Also Blizzard's flagship franchise, Warcraft, still has hundreds of characters that could serve as inspiration for new Heroes playable characters. As I said, this is the least likely option, but if they can renew some interest in the game by getting it on Steam or getting it on consoles and actually making sure people know the game still exists, maybe some day we will see new characters or maps come back to Heroes of the Storm.
Do I earnestly think that Blizzard/Microsoft will make any of these moves? No, not really. I think they pretend that Heroes of the Storm doesn't exist, even though they clearly still have someone working on the game to roll out these regular balance updates. If anything, I could see the Steam move, but they likely won't even announce the game's migration and it won't have cross-play or support of any type. But truthfully, I haven't lost all hope. Maybe it is just the weird fact that we're still receiving updates for the game that makes me think something could potentially happen with it. If anything does happen, you best believe that I'll mention it here and I'll be shouting from the rooftops with the rest of you.
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