At the moment, Heroes of the Storm is a distant memory for many Blizzard fans. In 2018, Blizzard reduced the Heroes of the Storm team and announced that it was moving to the so-called “long-term support” phase. This process included the termination of esports support for Heroes of the Storm, including its Heroes Global Championship events. Blizzard is now taking additional steps to roll back support for Heroes of the Storm, moving the game into what Blizzard traditionally calls maintenance mode.
On Friday, July 8, Blizzard announced that Heroes of the Storm is switching to support mode, which both StarCraft and StarCraft 2 are currently in. In particular, this means that Heroes of the Storm will continue to provide basic support for current in-game features such as hero rotation and seasonal rolls. However, no additional content will be developed for Heroes of the Storm, so the fixes will focus only on bug fixes and necessary balance changes.
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The lack of new content also means that Heroes of the Storm will no longer receive new microtransactions from Blizzard. The Heroes of the Storm store will remain open to those who would like to purchase skins and other offers, but they will simply be previously available content. The game, as it exists now, will exist in the future.
In a grim revelation, Blizzard mentioned that Heroes of the Storm turned 7 years old in June. Apart from the celebration among the most devoted Heroes of the Storm fans, this event did not bring much results. Now, a month later, Blizzard thanks the community for their support.
As a last gift before transferring Heroes of the Storm to maintenance mode, all players will receive a free vehicle. Blizzard will be giving away the “incredibly rare” epic mount Arcane Lizard. The mount will be delivered to Heroes of the Storm players along with an update that will be released next week. There are no explicit restrictions as to who can unlock the steed or how long it will be available.
At one point, it seemed that Blizzard sincerely wanted to turn Heroes of the Storm into a MOBA that would compete with League of Legends and Dota 2 as one of the best MOBAs in the world. Although this goal was never achieved, it is curious to think what Heroes of the Storm might look like today if it had received wider support from developers over the years.
Heroes of the Storm is already available on PC.
