Between the ever presence of World of Warcraft, the popularity of Hearthstone’s digital card game and Overwatch making huge waves over the last year, it’s easy to forget that Blizzard also have a finger in the MOBA pie. They want to remind you about that and entice you to come and try Heroes of the Storm with its significant new 2.0 update that just launched.
There’s a new Battleground map to duke it out on, for one thing, and a new hero has been added to the game in the form of Genji from Overwatch, but there’s more fundamental changes to the way player progression is handled, loot boxes and more. You can read all about the changes here, and check out the new cinematic introduction.
That’s not all though, as the next four weeks host a new Nexus Challenge 2.0 that’s there to reward players simply for playing the game. Play five matches in each week in Quick Match, Unranked or Ranked with a friend alongside you, and you will earn things for both HotS and Overwatch, that includes a second change to get the Oni Genji skim and a really cute new Officer D.Va skin for Overwatch.
The schedule and rewards are:
- Quest 1: Starts after April 25
- Complete 5 games with a friend in Versus A.I., Quick Match, Unranked, or Ranked.
- Overwatch Rewards: Oni Genji Skin, Portrait, and Spray.
- Heroes Rewards: Orochi Hovercycle Mount, Oni Genji Banner, Portrait, and Spray.
- Quest 2: Starts after May 2
- Complete 5 more games with a friend in Quick Match, Unranked, or Ranked.
- Overwatch Rewards: Officer D.Va Skin.
- Heroes Rewards: Busan Police Hovercycle Mount.
- Quest 3: Starts after May 9
- Complete 5 more games with a friend in Quick Match, Unranked, or Ranked.
- Overwatch Rewards: Officer D.Va Portrait and Spray.
- Heroes Rewards: Overwatch Nexagon Mount, Officer D.Va Banner, Portrait, and Spray.
- Quest 4: Starts after May 16
- Complete 5 more games with a friend in Quick Match, Unranked, or Ranked.
- Overwatch Rewards: 10 Loot Boxes.
- Heroes Rewards: 10 Loot Chests (one of which is Rare).
Alas, the huge popularity of Overwatch extends well beyond the realms of PC and Mac gaming, which are the only two platforms that you can play Heroes of the Storm on. As long as you have tied your PSN or Xbox Live account to your Blizzard account, you should be able to unlock the skins across both, but while the game has rather minimal system requirements, but even that can be an impenetrable block for console-bound gamers.
Thankfully, Jeff (Kaplan) from the Overwatch team has good news in the long term:
We completely understand that there are some players who do not own or have access to a PC to play Heroes of the Storm. Because of this, we plan to add both the Oni Genji skin and the Officer D.Va skin to the normal, base Overwatch loot box at some point in the future.
With that said, I still encourage anyone with access to a PC to play the Nexus Challenge. Heroes of the Storm is an amazing game and you’ll unlock those skins for free and before anyone else.
