Watch Us Play The 'Heroes Of The Storm' 2.0 Update

In previous streams, we’ve played competitive games such as For Honor and Battlefield 1. For this week’s livestream, we’re going to try our hand at online competitive play once again--this time in a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), specifically Blizzard’s Heroes of the Storm, which just received a massive update.

The update, so-called “Heroes of the Storm 2.0,” changes the way you get access to more items as well as the overall progression for your ranking. In the past, all of the heroes had a maximum level cap of 20. With the update, that cap is removed, and you can continue to increase the level of each of your favorite heroes to 20 and beyond. The current level of your heroes are then added together to determine your overall player level.

With each new level for a hero, you’ll gain a loot chest, a reward system similar to Blizzard’s popular shooter, Overwatch. When you unlock these chests, you can gain varying types of rewards such as character skins, Shards (which you can use to create other cosmetic items), or even new heroes to use in future matches.

In the past, you needed to use real-world money as a way of purchasing skins or additional heroes. You can still use your money to buy these outright, but you can also earn them in time simply by playing matches and opening loot chests. Other features in the update include new sets of items such as different voice announcers for the match, sprays, and even custom loadouts for your favorite looks for each hero.

We’ll take a look at these new features, in addition to the main gameplay, on the livestream. Heroes of the Storm competes for players with other popular MOBAs such as Dota 2 and League of Legends. With this latest update, Blizzard’s efforts might be enough to attract seasoned players as well as newcomers to the genre.