Heroes of Newerth Open Beta Begins

9
S2 Games' Defense of the Ancients-inspired RTS-RPG Heroes of Newerth has entered open beta, as promised and you can get the Windows, Mac and Linux clients from your friendly neighbourhood FileShack before registering.

Like its inspiration--the Warcraft III mod DotA, whose current developer is now at Valve--Heroes of Newerth revolves around two teams of heroes trying to kill each other off amidst an endless battle between NPC armies to ultimately destroy the other's base.

Being in its own tailor-made engine allows HoN to offer several advantages over DotA, including voice communication, matchmaking, rankings and reconnection support.

A release date has yet to be announced but Heroes of Newerth can be pre-ordered now from S2 Games for $30.

Filed Under
From The Chatty
  • reply
    April 1, 2010 6:53 AM

    Wait, what? This game isnt out yet? It seems like people have been playing this for ages. Arent people going to be bored and burnt out by the time it actually goes on sale?

    • reply
      April 1, 2010 7:22 AM

      The game was in closed beta for a while, and has had a very active user base. The thing is with games like DotA, HoN, and the like is that they survive in part due to updates. On it's own, it provides a lot of amusing hours of gameplay if you've got the right mindset for this sort of play style, but you start losing some drive as things get slightly stale. Updates come in for that reason. They introduce new heroes and tweak existing ones, trying to get the perfect balance. (Which is very very difficult)
      Plus, you always have a good chunk of community players who are die-hard about the game, just like there were (and still are) for DotA.
      At least that's from my experience. I played DotA often until I migrated to HoN.

    • reply
      April 1, 2010 7:37 AM

      Yes...tehy have said they currently have 8 heroes in some form of development to put out to the game. They always spice up the gameplay. Not to mention there is usually around 40,000 people on playing at any one time, and this was during closed beta.

    • reply
      April 1, 2010 7:52 AM

      I pre-ordered back in December and it's still my favourite game.

      With over 800 matches play, I've still got _lots_ to learn. Of the 60 heroes, I'm only really comfortable playing around half of them, and there's still a handful of items I'm not used to using.

      • reply
        April 1, 2010 9:17 AM

        Just checked and I've actually been playing it since June last year o_O

    • reply
      April 1, 2010 8:56 AM

      I've been playing dota for something like seven years and I still choose to play it/HoN over other games probably 85% of the time.

Hello, Meet Lola