Heroes of the Storm is set to add the infamous World of Warcraft enemy Hogger as its next hero. The Scourge of Elwynn is currently available on the Heroes of the Storm test realm and is the latest addition to the ever growing list of characters in Blizzard's crossover multiplayer online battle arena game.
Hogger's claim to infamy dates all the way back to classic World of Warcraft, where he developed a reputation as a notoriously dangerous enemy early on in the game. A bounty quest would task players to kill the gnoll chieftain and as a result many underleveled and overconfident players would often die in their attempt to complete it. In Blizzard's canon for its battle arena game, however, Hogger managed to escape death and level out of his world to find easy prey in the Nexus.
Today, Heroes of the Storm released an official character spotlight trailer on YouTube for the gnoll chieftain to demonstrate what players can expect from game's newest hero. Hogger will be a mid-ranged brawler with a focus on crowd control and area damage, making him ideal in close combat and against tightly stacked teams. The trade off for all of the gnoll's hard-hitting power is his poor mobility and susceptibility to certain types of damage. As with any hero in the game, Hogger has a variety of special abilities, all of which were showcased in detail in the trailer.
With the addition of Hogger, World of Warcraft continues to be the most popular source Blizzard is pulling its heroes from. Excluding the gnoll chieftain, there are over 40 World of Warcraft heroes available for players to choose from. The next two highest hero counts are from StarCraft and Diablo and combined they still do not match the number of World of Warcraft characters. This, however, makes a lot of sense as the MMO is not just arguably Blizzard's most popular game, but one of the most popular games of all time.
Hogger's inclusion in Heroes of the Storm is more nostalgia driven compared to other heroes in the battle arena game simply because the gnoll chieftain was mainly designed in World of Warcraft to just be a tough enemy. There is likely not a deep emotional connection like players may have with other characters. Instead, Hogger is more of a fun inclusion that harkens back to old memories of struggling with an early game enemy. Those foes tend to stick with gamers for a long time and that nostalgia will likely get Heroes of the Storm fans that played World of Warcraft to choose the Scourge of Elwynn when he joins the Nexus.
Source: Heroes of the Storm