Heroes Of The Storm Launches

Blizzard's highly popular MOBA title that's been in beta for quite some time has finally exited from the testing phases and officially launched for everyone. The free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena game also received a brand new character named Johanna, a paladin of sorts with a penchant for violence. You can check out the trailer below.

Johanna is a little like the fantasy medieval rendition of Overwatch's Zarya. She's a tank and can dish out massive damage while cutting, hacking and slashing down enemies.

Johanna is just one of many heroes available in Heroes of the Storm, a game that contains many of the iconic faces and names of various characters cataloged through the fantastical and rich history of Blizzard's popular brands. Some of these characters come from titles like Diablo, StarCraft and World of Warcraft. It's likely that we'll start seeing Overwatch characters make an appearance in Heroes of the Storm when the game's beta finally gets underway later this year.

Blizzard's take on the MOBA genre is slightly different from other games out there. Opposite of League of Legends or Dota 2 there are no individual levels in Heroes of the Storm. To avoid creating a lot of animosity amongst teammates, the developers have opted to make Heroes of the Storm utilize a team leveling mechanic. This means that everything an individual player does contributes to an overall team level during a match. This encourages teamwork and more cooperative tactics, as well as gives support classes and healers a much stronger role in the overall fight because they'll be rewarded for adhering to their role as opposed to desperately trying to level up by farming minions or mini-bosses.

Outside of the team levels, Heroes of the Storm also does away with items. In both League of Legends and Dota 2 players are encouraged to purchase items to help buff their characters and their abilities. On each team level in Blizzard's title, gamers get to choose from talents. These talents offer players the ability to upgrade the core skills of their hero as well as stack buffs on other skills. How you attribute talent points to each skill – in which case, some of the talents are active and some of them are passive buffs – will determine how your character fits into typical archetypes. So you can be a full tank based on picking some talents for each team level or you can be a full DPS depending on how you pick other talents during team levels. This gives the game a lot of variety and players many different options to mess around with each character and develop them during a match based on what the team needs. So far, a lot of gamers really like how Blizzard has handled this feature in the game.

You can start playing Heroes of the Storm right now, for free, by heading on over to the game's official website and downloading the client. For additional skins and heroes you can purchase them using the in-game cash shop.