In 2009, League of Legends was released and caused a MOBA hype. Several other games followed, including Heroes of Newerth in 2010. However, this will be discontinued next year, as the developers have now announced.
When will HoN be discontinued? Heroes of Newerth is set to continue running until June 20, 2022. After that, it will be shut down and the servers will be taken offline.
The shutdown does not come as a complete surprise, as the developers already announced in 2019 that update 4.7.3 would be the last major content patch. After that, only balance changes and bug fixes should follow.
The developers thanked the players on Facebook for supporting them for 12 years.
Heroes of Newerth was inspired by DOTA and was released as a full-price title
What kind of game is it? Heroes of Newerth was officially released in May 2010, a few months after League of Legends. The gameplay of both games is very similar:
- In both games, two teams with five players each battle against each other.
- You take on the role of a champion, and the goal is to destroy the enemy base.
- Both games feature three lanes where minions travel and towers stand.
However, Heroes of Newerth is more closely related to the DOTA mod. The game is darker and not as beginner-friendly as LoL. It also relies on the “deny” technique. Players can intentionally kill their own minions and towers to prevent the opponent from gaining gold and experience points.
Another major difference was the payment model. While LoL was released as a free-to-play title, players initially had to purchase Heroes of Newerth as a full-price title. In return, they had all champions unlocked from the start.
This is also reflected in the initial player numbers. LoL exploded right from the start, while HoN remained stable for many years but never reached the highest tiers:
Balance issues and the release of DOTA damaged HoN
Why did HoN fail? Upon release, Heroes of Newerth was well received. Although it had fewer players due to the price barrier, it was positively received, especially by DOTA fans and players who wished for more depth in LoL. Some referred to HoN as the best DOTA clone on the market.
In 2011, the game transitioned to a free-to-play model and experienced a “small boom,” as can be seen in the graphic above.
However, around this time, champions were reportedly released that were much too powerful. These champions had to be purchased separately, even for players who had already paid the full price for Heroes of Newerth. This did not go over well.
Interest in the MOBA began to decline around 2014. There were two main reasons for this:
- On one hand, DOTA 2 from Valve became increasingly popular. Many DOTA fans who had previously played Heroes of Newerth switched from the “clone” to the “original”.
- In 2015, there was a change at the developer studio, and a new publisher took over. Afterward, regular updates reportedly became significantly less frequent.
In 2022, HoN is set to end for good.
Does HoN still have players today? Yes, matches still start relatively quickly. There is also a YouTube channel that summarizes the “Top Plays of the Week” and receives over 20,000 views each week with its videos. Additionally, outside of this channel, there are still some videos on YouTube related to this MOBA.
If you want to see some gameplay of HoN, you can check out the video by YouTuber Gorgc. He tried Heroes of Newerth for the first time in June 2021:
What do you think about the discontinuation of Heroes of Newerth? Have you tried this MOBA in the past, and will you miss it? Or are you completely satisfied with alternatives like LoL, DOTA, and Smite? Feel free to share in the comments.
MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus recently played LoL again after a long break and was even pleasantly surprised:
I played LoL again after 2 years and was surprisingly not harassed much
