Game Director Says 'Heroes Of The Storm' Improved, But Still More To Do

New hero Yrel, announced today as part of the Echoes of Alterac release for Heroes of the Storm. Three years ago, Blizzard Entertainment took the heroes from Warcraft and StarCraft and Diablo, dumped them into three lanes, and yelled, "Fight!" Heroes of the Storm marked its third anniversary as Blizzard's massive online battle arena (MOBA) game this weekend, and as part of the festivities, I caught up with game director Alan Dabiri to chat about the state of the Nexus. It hasn't always been a smooth lane (we're looking at you, Hanamura map) and Heroes has sometimes been overshadowed by its bigger brothers in the Blizzard stable of games, but the title has come a long way in three years. For the first time in its history, it recently started launching bits and pieces of its own original story. That's crucial in a company where every game now has its own narrative. In much the same way that Blizzard's Hearthstone started as a digital card game that happened to involve Warcraft characters, then evolved into a game with single-player stories and an impact on intellectual property parent World of Warcraft, Heroes is taking the first step into being a fully-fledged IP in its own right. From map mod to full game: Heroes went from a proof of concept, showing how DOTA could exist as a StarCraft II map, to an actual game. Will the heroes still come from Blizzard's other games? But how did they get here, and why are they fighting? Blizzard's storytelling teams are finally ready to start answering that question, and the game design teams are taking what they learned from Hanamura and other missteps. It's a good time to be a Hero.