Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm, originally announced long ago to be a free Starcraft 2 MOBA mode and later spun off into a stand-alone title, has technically been playable for members of the public by invite only since March 2014. It spent almost year in a development stage that Blizzard called a Technical Alpha, and last month entered an invite-only Closed Beta, during which selected gamers outside of Blizzard have had the change to play, test and stream the MOBA. Finally, and not a moment too soon, Blizzard has revealed the launch date:



Heroes of the Storm will be transitioning to Open Beta on May 19th, and formal release on the 2nd June. Closed Beta invites are still going out, but to participate in the beta at any stage you may need to opt-in to beta testing through your Battle.net account settings. Transitioning to launch status will largely be figurative however; any progress you make in the game from no on will not be wiped in the transition to launch.

If you're looking to play HotS you should be aware that the game follows a free to play model not unlike that of League of Legends, if not quite so onerous: characters and skins are bought for real money or in-game currency, whilst a leveling system is the chief means of in-game progression. Unlike LoL, varied objective-based maps mean that you're less likely to get stuck in a rut, and the game should stay fresher for longer.

For more information visit the Heroes of the Storm microsite.

Source: Battle.net