If you’ve been looking forward to the closed beta for Heroes of the Storm, the wait is finally over for anyone living in the southern hemisphere. The free-to-play online team brawler which boasts several iconic characters from Blizzard’s repertoire has officially gone into closed beta testing today and will make it to the rest of the world tomorrow.
The company released a five minute video walkthrough of the closed beta yesterday to prepare players for all of the new updates that have hit the title since the alpha. Recent additions include a more comprehensive tutorial, a new base, and new hero. The two modes, Hero League and Draft Mode have also been added.
Take a look at the beta walkthrough to get up to speed on the new changes.
The new desert themed battleground Sky Temple–which was debuted at Blizzcon 2014– challenges players to fight for control of ancient temples which when captured have the ability to obliterate enemy structures with threatening beams of energy. Sky Temple will join five other maps set in the far reaches of the Nexus.
Thrall, who some of you may know as the fearsome Warchief of the Horde in Warcraft, has joined the roster of playable characters. According to the video, Thrall is capable of dealing massive ability damage from a distance. The chief is sure to wreck enemies with his abilities Chain Lightning, Windfury and Earthquake. Also, to support the addition of Thrall, the art team has cooked up some awesome looking skins. They’ve also bumped up more skin updates for other characters that make switching between the different looks a lot more tactical.
Hero League is the new ranked play mode that once players hit level 30 and own at least 10 heroes, allows them to either go in alone or with a party of up to five for ranked competitive matches against other players. Draft Mode is a new mode implemented to support ranked play. In this mode, teams take turns picking heroes to build a competitive team. A traditional snake pick is utilized to prevent competitors from picking the same heroes.
For more information on all of the tweaks, head on over to battle net and feast your eyes on this week’s patch notes. Also, to opt into the beta yourself, surf on over to the Heroes Battle.net page..
—
What do you think of the new additions? Does this look like something  you’d want to play? Let us know in the comments below.Â
Comments