In a surprise reveal during BlizzCon 2026’s Opening Ceremony, Blizzard’s MOBA, Heroes of the Storm, isn’t just back; it’s coming in hot with a new hero! Xal’atath is the newest hero coming to the Nexus after four years of Blizzard publicly announcing that active development on HotS is over. HotS has consistently had a highly dedicated fanbase since that announcement, eating up every occasional, about-annual, balance update just for glimmers of hope that Blizzard will change its mind.
Their hope has officially paid off. During BlizzCon, I sat down with HotS’s Lead Game Producer, James Yen, to talk about all things Heroes of the Storm. Our conversation mostly focused on what happened during the four-year downtime and why they chose Xal’atath to kick off what is pitched as the first of several new heroes on the way.
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First, let’s learn a little about James Yen and how he became project lead. From Yen, “I started 21 years ago as a game master, and that was my first in the game industry. I went on to do maintenance, patches, game launches. Then I joined Heroes in 2015, which was essentially my first foray onto a game team. I did live ops, and then I ended up running art and design production. And then in 2017, I left the team to work on other projects at Blizzard.”
The Heroes of the Storm devs always wanted to bring the MMO back.
But his journey clearly led him back to Heroes of the Storm. “I always felt that I was going to come back in my heart, like Heroes was for me. In 2022, I was able to have that opportunity to work with a small, passionate group of people to start on Heroes again.” 2022 was the same year that Blizzard announced active development would stop on the game. But the game never actually stopped receiving updates. They were just very sparse.
Yen described that period, from the time of the indefinite hiatus to 2026: “It was sad, and I know the community was sad. We were sad. At that point, we’re like, ‘Okay, what do we need to do to bring Heroes back?’ We have such a passionate community that’s been playing for years. That gave us the opportunity to be like, ‘What do we need to get there?’ So a lot of that time was spent getting to this moment today.”
He detailed how exactly the team got right back to working on the game they loved, for a community they loved. “The first thing we did was look at the landscape of Heroes of the Storm. For a game that has been running for so long, there are a lot of things that you can look at from infrastructure and technology. So we focused on that for the first year and a half.”
“Once we felt like we got that to a good place, that’s when we started doing bug fixes. Because the team needs to get familiar with the game. Work on the stuff. That’s when we got to a good point where we’re like, ‘okay, let’s make a hero’, and then that’s where we are today.”
Xal’atath will be the first new hero in HotS’s new era.
So why Xal’atath for the first hero for the “revival?” To Yen and the team, the primary enemy of World of Warcraft Midnight felt like the obvious choice. Yan said, “We looked at Blizzard’s landscape, and we have all these wonderful characters. And at that point, Xal’atath was the big bad of Blizzard. For us, she has that vibe that feels like Heroes. She’s kind of sassy, evil, and then we thought we could play with that.”
He continued, “On top of that, her kit wasn’t fully developed on the WoW side. So what we could do is work with them to figure out how can we translate her into Heroes and make her abilities feel familiar, but also work for Heroes.” Xal’atath was also announced at BlizzCon 2026 to be the final boss of the upcoming eight-boss raid in Midnight‘s last major patch, Eclipse. In an interesting way, maybe Heroes of the Storm is also a way to get an idea of what we could expect during the fight, perhaps?
As for pricing for the new hero, she is available within a $20 bundle, which includes special skins and a mount. When speaking on locking a hero behind a $20 bundle after four years, Yen said, “So when Xal’atath comes out, she will be for cash, and then at a later point in time, she will be available for gold. On PTR, she’s free to play for everyone. But when we were figuring out what that price point was, we wanted to make sure that it made sense.”
The focus for now is especially on returning players.
Yet stepping back to Heroes of the Storm, the game has been around for, in total, eleven years. And since launch, the game has accumulated 90 heroes, with characters from just about every Blizzard property and even some unique characters specially made for Heroes of the Storm. Each hero has different roles and specialties, and that’s not even counting the unique map mechanics. In other words, for anyone starting fresh, there is a lot of content and learning to be done.
But according to Yen, that’s not the team’s current focus. They want to concentrate on those who’ve stuck with the game up to this point. “Right now, the focus is on all these players that have been playing for so long. They’ve gone through the ups and downs with us. We want to focus on getting them to a good spot.” But they’re not ignoring the ever-growing divide of onboarding new players. To keep Heroes of the Storm sustainable, they need an influx of new or lapsed players, too, not just those determined few who are still playing.
Yen addressed this directly, too. “Once we feel like the players who have stuck with us are in a great spot, then we can focus on [the new player onboarding]. But it’s important to focus on the returning players because they’ve been there and they’ve been supporting us. Previous devs have adjusted the tutorial experience to be better for players. When you come in, the demo experience isn’t the best.”
Lead Game Producer James Yen reassures us that HotS is now in the right hands.
So, what can players expect? Per Yen, there isn’t a set cadence of content updates. “We like to have a little bit of whimsy and surprise, but definitely there will be consistency. It won’t be like once a year. We will have consistent updates, but I don’t really want to say it’s going to be every two months.”
And for those wondering whether Heroes of the Storm is officially back, Yen addressed that as well. “Our thought as the team is that we’re going to build a sustainable product, and we’re going to have a team that continues to support that. We’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that we can continue developing. But we’re always making sure that we understand what it takes. We feel confident we can keep developing with our mindset and the development process in mind.”
As an avid Heroes of the Storm player, seeing its initial cancellation was depressing. Yet the reveal of Xal’atath and hearing the passion of Yen and his speaking about the new team working on the game with such a devoted fanbase is reassuring that it’s now in the right hands. Plus, they have an even bigger roster of characters to choose from! Who would you like to see them add next? My pick is Rammatra from Overwatch.
Heroes of the Storm is available now on PC, with Xal’atath releasing on September 28th.
