Papa Blizzard, Papa Blizzard! Why are Aunt Kerrigan and Uncle Diablo fighting? No, seriously, why? I didn’t even know they were from the same side of the family. Or the same dimension. And yet, for all the “because why not”-ness of the game’s premise, Heroes of the Storm plays quite nicely, taking MOBA mechanics and sanding down the rough edges to a point of real intuitiveness – sculpting a svelte ice swan from a figurative iceberg. I discussed the surprise hit of BlizzCon with game director Dustin Browder, and we touched on everything from business models to plans for a map editor to whether or not Heroes counts as a “casual” MOBA. That was all delightful. Unfortunately, Browder’s perspective on the MOBA genre’s epidemic of absurd, hypersexualized female characters turned out significantly less so.
RPS: What is the Storm? How does one become a hero of it? Is it at all important to any sort of story? A blizzard is a type of storm. Is it just another way to say Heroes of Blizzard?
Browder: Honestly, theories differ. Some people have said that it’s Heroes of Blizzard, because yeah, Blizzard is a storm. Other people have said the Nexus is sort of a storm of worlds crashing together. That’s where it’s come from. And some people just thought it was a cool-sounding word.
Inside the studio, I think you get all three of those answers to where it comes from and what it means.
RPS: Is there any sort of story here – if not with narrations and cut-scenes then through, say, little mid-match character interactions ala League of Legends?
Browder: It’s very light in terms of how it’s done. Heroes meet in the Nexus to battle it out. For glory, for honor, and kind of just for the fun of it. It’s not canon or because Thrall died in some battle and now he can’t be in Orgrimmar or something. It’s very loose. I mean, this is a game where at some point a murloc is gonna get Diablo in a headlock and kill him. It’s not a serious game. It’s not a serious part of the lore.
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