Heroes of the Storm Global Championship, Heroes of the Dorm not returning in 2019

Blizzard Entertainment has confirmed that Heroes of the Storm will be ending their esports involvement in 2019 with the end of the Heroes Global Championship and Heroes of the Dorm events.

The news comes as part of a larger announcement by Blizzard that has seen members of the Heroes team move on to other projects, both announced and unannounced.

Heroes of the Dorm

J. Allen Brack, President of Blizzard Entertainment and Ray Gresko, Chief Development Officer, made a joint statement: “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. This isn’t the first time we’ve had to make tough choices like this. Games like Diablo II, World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Overwatch, and more would not exist had we not made similar decisions in the past.”

Heroes launched on June 2nd, 2015, and has seen regular large updates and plenty of cross-Blizzard champions join the game. Blizzard recently added the games first unique hero to the game in the form of Orphea.

Brack and Gresko added: “We’ll continue actively supporting the game with new heroes, themed events, and other content that our community loves, though the cadence will change. Ultimately, we’re setting up the game for long-term sustainability.” So while the content will likely slow down, the game will continue to exist. The game recently received its new ‘XP update’ that made a number of changes to the in-game experience which had been met with mixed feelings by the community. The game has also recently had its Christmas event launch.

The pair finally spoke to the future of Heroes of the Storm esports: “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 love that the community has for these programs is deeply felt by everyone who works on them, but we ultimately feel this is the right decision versus moving forward in a way that would not meet the standards that players and fans have come to expect.”

Esports Insider says: This is a sad day for the community; Heroes has always struggled to find its place alongside League of Legends and Dota 2, while the esports scene has had large prize pools and support from Blizzard, the live game has never had the success of Blizzards’ other IPS. While this is the end of official Blizzard support, the hope will now be that the community continues to support more grass root esports events.