Throwback Thursday: The retro trend of Heroes of the Storm's Warcraft characters

For the last several years, the Warcraft franchise has become almost synonymous with World of Warcraft.  The other day, a friend of mine commented that Hearthstone wasn't so much "Heroes of Warcraft" as it was simply "Heroes of WoW".  It's true that Hearthstone currently draws on elements from WoW more than any of the other Warcraft games, and that the MMORPG will likely remain the defining aspect of the franchise.

However, a recent pattern in Heroes of the Storm implies that Blizzard is making an effort to hearken back to the Warcraft that many of its older fans remember.  So for the first post of 2015 (and first Throwback Thursday edition) let's take a look at how Blizzard is tacitly acknowledging that some of those Warcraft fans may not necessarily be World of Warcraft fans.

Anyone who has played Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion, The Frozen Throne, will recognize almost all the Warcraft characters on the Heroes roster.  At first glance, some of them even seem to have been cut and pasted from the original games.  Though their art has been updated considerably since their debut over 10 years ago, Illidan, Uther, Jaina, Thrall and Muradin are all bound to cause a sense of déjà vu.

Muradin in WC3 - scale it up and...

...you would get something very much like this.

The similarities are more than skin-deep.  Many of their spells have been ported over too, albeit with changes to balance them for a player versus player game.  Muradin is a good example of this, sharing three of his five abilities with the Mountain King hero - Storm bolt, Thunderclap and Avatar.  With the exception of Thunderclap (the area of effect stun changed to a slow so as not to be ridiculously overpowered), they are virtually unchanged.  Blizzard developers have stated that this was intentional in order to preserve what players loved about the Mountain King hero unit in Muradin's character.  That statement implied a similar approach to future characters who had appeared in the original Warcraft games as Blizzard clearly wasn't afraid to recycle gameplay design concepts.

I think this is great.  The original DotA mod for Warcraft III was built around these characters, so it only makes sense that they should be included in Blizzard's official product.  Players who have little to no connection to WoW (like myself) but enjoy the Warcraft universe will be drawn to Heroes by the familiar faces.

Jaina in Heroes

Jaina in WC3

Though Muradin and Illidan were among the initial available heroes when the game's Alpha phase launched, this trend of taking heavy inspiration from a character's RTS incarnation seems to have really taken off with the newer Warcraft heroes.  The process also seems refined - the move sets aren't direct copies but are still true to the core identity in appearance and theme.  Jaina, the most recent Nexus arrival, is still very much the ice-mage we met in Reign of Chaos and retains her signature Summon Water Elemental spell, yet this still feels like a new and exciting way to play her.

Our favorite undead spider lord, Anub'arak received similar treatment (and on a side note came out as what I personally believe one of the best tanks in the game) to Jaina.  His most important aspects are preserved with summoning scarabs, burrowing, a thick carapace and the iconic and infuriating (but oh so fun) line of spikes stun.  The same can be said about Thrall's new move set (the old one having been given to Rehgar) that was unveiled at BlizzCon 2014.  Like in Warcraft III, he uses shamanic magic to summon spirit wolves, throw lightning and generally shake things up (very literally).

Anub'arak and Thrall clash with their signature moves on the new battleground, Sky Temple.

With many of these characters playing an ongoing part in WoW, Blizzard could likely have given them any number of other abilities and stayed true to the character according to their design guidelines (disclaimer, I don't play WoW so I'm making a few assumptions here).  Moreover, their appearances undergo drastic changes (Jaina, Thrall, Illidan) yet they reflect their very first incarnations from Warcraft III in Heroes of the Storm.  The conventional logic is that these are the most famous, but with the popularity of World of Warcraft (10 million subscribers as of November 2014), it wouldn't be surprising if the WoW versions were the more famous of the two.

Another possible reason is in-game clarity.  For example, Illidan is portrayed in his original Night Elf form, as opposed to after his transformation, though either would be equally recognizable.  However, with the sheer diversity of characters from various Blizzard universes, there will likely be plenty of horns, hooves and giant wings as it is.  But that doesn't explain the other heroes released since.

Thrall's character page in Heroes of the Storm - note the familiar ability icons

The speculation on the whys and wherefores of Blizzard's decision to take many of its characters down memory lane could take up a post in and off itself.  Which, with the Closed Beta nearing on January 13, I just might do.

For now, we know that the pattern exists and that it's likely to continue with future releases and we're left to draw our own conclusions.  For my part, I think it's meant to show what I said at the begining of this post - that you don't have to be a fan of the World of Warcraft to be a fan of the Warcraft universe.