Heroes of the Storm Closed Beta Coming January 13 – Update

Three new heroes and two new arenas have been revealed for Blizzard’s MOBA Heroes of the Storm at BlizzCon 2014.

Blizzard has revealed several new heroes for its upcoming Heroes of the Storm MOBA-style game, with a couple of them tied to the 20th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise.

Human mage Jaina Proudmoore and Orc shaman Thrall were revealed to be part of the laundry list of playable characters in the game from Blizzard franchises. Jaina’s character model is a cross between her Warcraft 3 persona and her World of Warcraft model. She is an ice mage that excels at slowing enemies down and dealing damage at distance. Thrall is an assassin character with big damage from his spells and hammer.

Sylvanas Windrunner was revealed as playable at the panel discussion, and she is a dark archer with stuns and curses. She can also use mind control on mercs and enemy heroes. And finally, the cartoony Lost Vikings were unveiled as three heroes in one that can move independently and go after separate objectives.

Blizzard also revealed a glimpse of two new battlegrounds, Sky Temple that floats above the clouds (capture temples with mobs that spawn to try to knock you off the temple), and Tomb of the Spider Queen, where you kill minions and collect gems to summons the spider queen.

Closed beta for the game will be coming on January 13. Blizzard is still sending out new waves of testing invites. If you want a better chance at an invitation, be sure to opt in to Heroes of the Storm testing on your Battle.net Account Management page. No word yet, however, on an open beta date.