Blizzard slows Heroes of the Storm development and cancels scheduled events

Some unfortunate news for Heroes of the Storm (HotS) fans. Blizzard has just revealed their plans to shift their development focus away from the game to instead focus more strongly on other areas. This news also means that previously scheduled events, such as the Heroes Global Championship 2019 and the Heroes of the Dorm 2019, will be cancelled.

“We now have more live games and unannounced projects than at any point in the company’s history. We’re also at a point where we need to take some of our talented developers and bring their skills to other projects. As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to shift some developers from Heroes of the Storm to other teams, and we’re excited to see the passion, knowledge, and experience that they’ll bring to those projects.”

“We’ve also evaluated our plans around Heroes esports—after looking at all of our priorities and options in light of the change with the game, the Heroes Global Championship and Heroes of the Dorm will not return in 2019. This was another very difficult decision for us to make.”

The good news here is that it sounds like Blizzard has a whole slew of unannounced games  and other projects in the works. This isn’t much solace for dedicated HotS players though who should now expect a slower trickle of updates and events as more developers are pulled from the HotS team.

This move by Blizzard may be a sign that their MOBA wasn’t performing as well as they would have liked. It’s not all too surprising really, considering that it was going up against two of the biggest games in the world, League of Legends and DOTA. Originally releasing in June 2015, HotS tried to pave its own path in the genre as a more accessible alternative to other titles. It appeared to be doing fairly well for itself although this recent announcement puts the game’s future in question.

Blizzard pride themselves on maintaining a bustling community of dedicated fans and players, continually updating, patching and balancing their big games. Whilst development may be slowing down for Heroes of the Storm, it’s what comes next from Blizzard that will excite their fans.