The lead hero designer of Heroes of the Storm talks about the many freedoms and challenges in developing new (and old) heroes.
Tomorrow, the “For Azeroth” event begins in Heroes of the Storm, where players can earn new mounts in both HotS and World of Warcraft. On this occasion, Kent-Erik Hagman, the Lead Hero Designer of HotS, answered a lot of questions about the development of the various heroes.
The freedom that developers have is often both a blessing and a curse. Especially with heroes that could not be played in other games and had few gameplay elements – like Chromie or Medivh – it can sometimes be difficult to capture the essence of the character properly.
“At the beginning, we wanted to make Medivh a healer. He had this powerful healing-over-time effect (30 seconds!) that he could give to his allies (Aegwynn’s Blessing). But time and again, we faced the problem that it didn’t align with the fantasy of portraying this powerful mage as a healer. When we combined that with additional abilities, like the ability to throw people into a tornado (which later became the Ley Line Seal) and him being able to fly around as a raven, he felt more like a druid of the claw than the Last Guardian of Azeroth!”
Later, Medivh was then made the “Negation Mage” which corresponds more to his appearance in Warcraft 3.
Another challenge is choosing the right point in a character’s history to transfer them into the game. Arthas could have been the peaceful paladin from Warcraft 3 instead of the Lich King, or Thrall could be the more tranquil “Earth healer” that he has become in the latest expansions of World of Warcraft. The expectations of players are important here when they hear a name and have a specific image in their mind:
“When we decide which version of a hero to take, that is a decision we make on a case-by-case basis. For example, Samuro had little appearance in WoW but perfectly fit the Blademaster combat style from Warcraft 3. The same goes for the “Mountain King” in the form of Muradin.”
Hagman is particularly pleased when ideas from “his” game are also transferred to other games.
“Murky has a complete quest line in Legion, Rehgar was prominently featured in the quest “The Elements Call”. Better yet, you can even fight against Li Li and Chen in WoW, who use their abilities from Heroes of the Storm. To be honest, that brought a little tear of joy to my eye.“
Soon, a new hero will join the Nexus – Lúcio from Overwatch.
