Heroes of the Storm officially enters maintenance mode

After a seven-year run, Heroes of the Storm is officially entering maintenance mode: no new content will be developed for the game. In a blog post, Blizzard announced that, moving forward, the game will be supported “in a manner similar to [their] other longstanding games, StarCraft and StarCraft II.”

What that means is that no new content will be developed for Heroes, whether it’s gameplay content or just cosmetic content to be added to the in-game shop. But what already exists in the game environment will still be there: the game will keep featuring seasonal rolls and hero rotations, and there will be smaller patches focused on bug fixing, client sustainability, and even balance updates, as needed. Even StarCraft, a game released in 1998, got a patch in September 2021 — which means that these games are never fully “abandoned.” Some players have expressed that as long as the game gets occasional patches to fix bugs and balance issues — and the servers are kept running — they’ll be content.

Over the last few years, official support for Heroes from Blizzard had already been dwindling — it was the community that was really keeping the game alive and thriving. Even after the HGC was unceremoniously cancelled just weeks after BlizzCon’s 2018 championship, grassroots fan events and tournaments, such as HeroesCCL, have moved in to fill the gap. However, even those fan initiatives had encountered difficulties attracting more sponsors and external investment, which led to the recent cancellation of the HeroesCCL S4 Championship LAN event. With today’s news, it’s even less likely that such events will garner sufficient support and attention, sadly — but hopefully some members of the Heroes community will remain engaged and willing to host them.

On a final note, Blizzard is gifting an Epic Arcane Lizard mount to all players with next week’s patch, as a final “thank you” to that dedicated community.

So long, Heroes of the Storm. Long live Heroes of the Storm.