Heroes of the Storm players can enjoy free access to the game’s entire roster of characters this weekend, Blizzard has announced. From January 13 to 16, the paywalls will drop and you’ll have the chance to play as any Hero you please without having to drop a dime.
Outside of promotions such as these, permanently unlocking a Hero usually requires a one-off payment, with a rotation system in place for those that prefer not to spend any cash. Of course, if you take a particular liking to any Hero during the free period, you’ll still need to purchase them, assuming they’re not currently in rotation.
It may have gotten off to a shaky start, but Blizzard ramped up support for massively multiplayer arena battler throughout 2016, which saw the arrival of 16 brand new Heroes, 49 character skins, 26 mounts and a host of gameplay improvements. Besides a revamping of the MOBA’s competitive Ladder mode, the more casual Unranked Draft and Heroes Brawl modes were brought in to spice things up.
Launched back in 2015, Heroes of the Storm is Blizzard’s answer to League of Legends and Valve’s Dota 2. While it didn’t quite manage to stop those two titles from dominating the genre, Heroes of the Storm has still managed to carve out its own niche in the market. Borrowing familiar faces from all of Blizzard’s other games, the likes of Overwatch‘s Tracer and Zarya, as well as several characters from the Diablo series and World of Warcraft have been introduced since launch almost two years ago. The latest addition, troll warlord Zul’jin, hails from the latter.
2017 could well prove to be another big year for Heroes of the Storm, but if you’ve been away for a while, see Blizzard’s summary of the past 12 months below.