Heroes of the Storm - that's Blizzard's Warcraft/Starcraft/Diablo-mashing MOBA, remember - has had its guts spilled out on stage at Blizzcon this weekend. That's another way of saying that lots of details were revealed about it, along with a cinematic trailer, a "gameplay sneak peek", a developer interview, and screenshots out the wazoo. You can now sign up for the beta on battle.net - more details after the break.
First of all, if you have any interest at all in pitting the heroes of Starcraft vs the heroes of Warcraft vs the heroes of Diablo - and that Kerrigan/Deckard Cain slash fiction I spied on your desktop suggests you do - then you can sign up for the upcoming beta by logging in through battle.net here .
As for the game itself, well it's a MOBA alright, featuring customisable heroes from Blizzard's three main universes and pitting them in relatively short 15-20-minute matches with the aim of destroying an enemy base. There are 18 heroes in the current demo, although more will be added later. Revealed playable characters so far include Diablo, Kerrigan, Arthas, Uther, Jim Rayner, The Lich King, and a physical manifestation of Diablo 3's much-maligned auction house. OK, so I made that last one up. Maps will apparently be fairly unique, boasting their own battle-altering features and objectives - for example, Blackheart's Bay features a ghostly pirate ship that regularly spawns treasure chests you can either plunder or use to pay tribute to the nefarious Blackheart. The Cursed Hollow battlefield features a similar mechanic, but with totems and the Raven Lord in place of chests and Blackheart.
Doubtless more details will be revealed soon, but here's a gameplay video and a developer interview to tide you over.
Thanks to VG247 .
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Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.