Today Blizzard revealed the next character joining Heroes of the Storm's roster. The latest addition is none other than Kael'thas Sunstrider from Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft.
The developer made the announcement with a short video over the official Heroes of the Storm Twitter account:
Kael'thas previously appeared as an enemy in World of Warcraft expansion Burning Crusade. He was the final boss in raid Tempest Keep and was later resurrected for five-man dungeon Magister's Terrace. The tweet by Blizzard is referencing part of his speech from Magister's Terrace: "Tempest Keep was merely a setback!"
In WoW, Kael'thas was a powerful mage who relied on fire spells. The short teaser video reveals that's still the case in Heroes of the Storm, as does Blizzard's follow-up tweet featuring his two Heroic abilities:
Blizzard will share a lot more information on Kael'thas next week. Hero designers John Hodgson and Kent-Erik Hagman will be hosting a Q&A on Reddit on May 12th, at 2:30 PM PST (5:30 Eastern).
"The Q&A will last roughly 1.5 hours, so make sure to be there and post your questions in the Q&A thread created for the event," Blizzard said. "We look forward to seeing you there."
Kael'thas is an important and memorable character from the Warcraft universe so I can't argue with his inclusion in HotS. I'm surprised that Blizzard didn't add a character from another one of their franchises first, though. Warcraft characters already make up the bulk of the game's roster. There are 19 Warcraft heroes but 16 from StarCraft, Diablo and The Lost Vikings combined.
This will probably be an ongoing challenge for Blizzard, though. Warcraft has such a huge pool of characters to draw from thanks to WoW and all the games that came before it. StarCraft and Diablo just can't compete. The heavy Warcraft presence in the roster may get diluted over time, though, as Blizzard eventually starts adding Overwatch characters.
