Retired MOBA game Heroes of Newerth (HoN) has recently left fans speculating about a potential comeback following activities on its social media platforms and website.
Although the game and its social media presence were officially sunset in 2021, Heroes of Newerth’s Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) accounts have published several posts since the beginning of the year.
UPDATE 28/01/25: It has since been announced that Heroes of Newerth will be returning, under the new name Heroes of Newerth: Reborn.
HoN was a veteran MOBA title released on May 12th, 2010. As with many titles in the genre, the developers of Heroes of Newerth, S2 Games, were heavily inspired by Valve’s original Defense of the Ancients (DotA).
In May 2015, the game was acquired by global game developer Garena, which established FrostBurn Studios to continue HoN’s development.
Across its life cycle, Heroes of Newerth also grew a competitive scene with tournaments, such as the HoN Tour Thailand 2017: Cycles. The tournament with the highest prize pool was the HoN Tour World Finals in the same year. Organised in Bangkok by Garena, the World Finals featured a $115,000 (|£92,200) prize pool and esports teams, such as Fnatic.
However, viewership for the game competitively never significantly took off, with its highest peak viewership being 15,256 from the 2017 world finals.
On December 13th, 2021, the developers officially announced the end of the game, and all HoN servers were closed on June 20th the following year.
On Facebook in 2021, Heroes of Newerth stated: “We would like to extend our sincere thanks to everyone who has been on this journey, created special memories together with us, moved HoN forward, and created a lot of unforgettable stories for HoN, as well as making Heroes of Newerth become one of the most popular MOBA games in history.”
The return of Heroes of Newerth?
Unexpectedly, on January 1st this year, the game’s X and Facebook accounts became active again. Since then, followers have become witness to a series of vague posts throughout the month:
The title’s webpage is also online, displaying the shadow of the HoN logo in front of a dimly lit backdrop.
Two weeks ago, a Reddit user further noticed that the email listed on HoN’s Facebook profile is linked to Kongor Studios, which has been leading a community-run version of the original game called Project KONGOR.
This could hint at a revival of the official HoN by Kongor Studios itself. Indeed, Kongor Studios has launched a website dedicated to its team this year featuring several Project KONGOR contributors and individuals who have been involved with Heroes of Newerth in the past, including S2 Games Co-Founder Jesse Hayes.
The subtitle of the page reads: “Our passion is HoN, we’ve missed it! It is time to return it to its previous glory.”
However, until concrete information from official sources is revealed, the game’s comeback remains speculation.
