Games

Petition Asks Blizzard to Bring Heroes of the Storm to Steam

Published

1 month ago

November 20, 2024

Christoph Rediske

Key Takeaways

Fans petition for Heroes of the Storm to come to Steam to revitalize the game.
Steam releases for Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 attracted new players.
Bringing Heroes of the Storm to Steam poses risks but could potentially be beneficial.

Some Heroes of the Storm fans have created a petition asking Blizzard to bring the MOBA to Steam. This decision would ultimately not take a lot of resources from Blizzard and would give Heroes of the Storm the chance to revitalize itself on a new platform.

Heroes of the Storm is Blizzard’s pan-franchise MOBA released on June 2, 2015. Unfortunately, though it saw initial success, it gradually received less and less support from the company, finally entering maintenance mode in July 2022. That said, after about a year of radio silence, Heroes of the Storm started receiving regular balance updates approximately every three months.

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Now, Heroes of the Storm fans are hoping Blizzard gives the game one more small boost that could help it refresh its player base. A new petition on change.org started by HotS fan Emil Jantzen is asking Blizzard to put Heroes of the Storm on Steam, hoping the move might help attract players to the game. At press time, the petition had only received about 215 signatures over the course of nearly a week, but the number is still steadily rising.

Could Heroes of the Storm Come to Steam?

A re-release for Heroes of the Storm on Steam could make sense. Both Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 made the jump over to Steam, gaining new players due to the platform’s simplicity and popularity. Over 55,000 fans were playing Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred on Steam, even becoming the second-most-played game on the Steam Deck for a short while. Were Heroes of the Storm to get the same treatment, it could experience an influx of new players.

Of course, bringing Heroes of the Storm to Steam is fraught with all sorts of other risks. Both Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 were review bombed when they came to Steam, and while the former recovered to “Mostly Positive,” the latter still sits as the ninth worst-rated game on the platform. Adding Heroes of the Storm to Steam could open a similar can of worms for the old game.

Regardless, a comeback of Heroes of the Storm in light of Microsoft’s takeover of Blizzard makes sense to many fans. Players have expressed interest in seeing not only Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch characters from the last few years added to the MOBA, but also famous faces from other Microsoft-owned franchises, like Halo’s Master Chief or Gears of War’s Marcus Fenix. While it remains to be seen if such a revival will take place, fans are happy to see the development team for Heroes of the Storm – collectively and affectionately referred to as “The Janitor” – is still giving the game some love.

This free-to-play online team brawler assembles a diverse cast of characters from Blizzard’s far-flung realms of science fiction and fantasy, including the Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo universes, and challenges them to compete in epic, adrenaline-charged battles.

Thrall, Kerrigan, Diablo, Arthas, Zeratul, Tyrael—they’re all here and ready to test their might in the forge of eternal combat. Who will stand with you in battle? Build and customize heroes from across every Blizzard universe to suit your play style. Team up with your friends and engage in fast-paced mayhem across battlegrounds that impact strategy and change the way you play the game.

Good players win. Great ones win while dressed to kill. Distinguish yourself in battle with dozens of unique heroes, skins, and mounts, then customize your hero’s talents and choose heroic abilities.

The game features an array of gameplay modes for players of every skill level, including Cooperative, in which players team up against computer-controlled opponents, and Quick Match, an accessible way to jump in and play versus others. Experienced players can also join forces against other teams of players in highly competitive, draft-style ranked play.

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