Blizzard has confirmed that Heroes of the Storm will receive no more content updates. The crossover MOBA‘s seventh anniversary was just last month, but now is not the time for celebration. After years of suffering from its declining player base, Blizzard has opted against producing new content for HoTS.
In the announcing blog post, Blizzard explains that it intends to treat Heroes of the Storm similarly to other longstanding games like StarCraft. It will continue to support Heroes with more seasonal rolls and hero rotations. Also, the in-game shop will remain active for a while, but no new purchasable content will get added. Heroes of the Storm will still receive updates, but they will be focused on client sustainability and bug fixing with the occasional balance patch if necessary.
As a final token of appreciation, Blizzard is giving away a special mount. In next week’s patch, all players will receive the rare Epic Arcane Lizard mount. This mount was previously datamined by a group of players, but it’s unlikely that they foresaw the circumstances in which it would be distributed.
It’s been coming
Blizzard signs off the announcement by thanking the community for its support. Even though Heroes of the Storm is receiving no more content updates, that doesn’t mean it didn’t have a good run. It was once competing amongst the genre’s very best. It’s never fun to see a game approaching its end, but a seven-year run is better than most MOBAs manage.
The sad truth is that the writing has been on the wall for Heroes of the Storm for some time. Back in 2019, Blizzard effectively killed off the MOBA’s esports community when it canceled the Heroes Global Championship. Also, HotS has not received a new hero since 2020, when Warcraft‘s Hogger was added. It would have been nice to see Heroes of the Storm make a comeback, but it isn’t as though its community wasn’t prepared for this.
