In the MOBA games scene, Riot’s League of Legends and Valve’s Dota 2 are far and away the two biggest titles, with Heroes of the Storm being in a distant third place, both in the esports tournaments and in the general playerbase. Now, Heroes of the Storm just got a big blow — Blizzard recently announced that it is cancelling the Heroes Global Championship 2019 along with Heroes of the Dorm 2019.
The news doesn’t end there though, Blizzard also said in its statement that it’s shifting some members of the HotS team to other titles, effectively scaling back HotS’ development as the game is being set up for “long-term sustainability.”
This news comes as a surprise, especially as Blizzard announced the game’s first-ever original hero, Orphea, just last month at BlizzCon 2018. While this announcement doesn’t meant that the game will no longer get updates, the news certainly doesn’t bode well for its existing playerbase; a smaller development team means content updates.
As for esports, the Heroes Global Championship is the only big HotS tourney; the fact that it’s cancelled means that this should be the end for HotS esports. Especially as Blizzard did not mention any future esports plans in its statement.