Heroes of the Storm: Heroic Four 2015 TV Schedule, Live Stream and More
ESPN will make e-sports history on Sunday when the final of Blizzard Entertainment's Heroes of the Storm competition is aired live on U.S. cable.
Joystiq tweeted Blizzard's announcement:
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The multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game is yet to be publicly released, but the Grand Finals of this year's "Heroic Four" tournament will be broadcast on ESPN2. Here's all the details you need to know, per Blizzard's announcement:
| Arizona State vs. Boston College | 2:30 p.m. PDT/5:30 p.m. ET | ESPN3 (online only) | ESPN Player |
| Illinois Urbana-Champaign vs. Cal Berkeley | 4:30 p.m. PDT/7:30 p.m. ET | ESPN3 (online only) | ESPN Player |
| Winner 1 vs. Winner 2 | 6:30 p.m. PDT/9:30 p.m. ET | ESPN2 | ESPN Player |
Both semi-final matches are best of three, while the final is an extended best of five. Those hoping to tune in online should head over to the ESPN Player, where access to the online-only ESPN3 is granted.
As reported by VentureBeat's Jeff Grubb, ESPN3 previously broadcast Dota 2's "The International" tournament last year. However, the step toward live television coverage on ESPN2 marks a watershed moment for the future of e-sports. A huge audience could produce major interest and, eventually, regular gaming slots on the channel.
Heroes of the Storm is a complex five-on-five, objective-based game that brings together a host of characters from Blizzard's best-selling franchises. This includes favourites from Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo.
As highlighted below, the action combines a mix of real-time strategy and role-playing-game elements:
Teams are tasked with taking control of lanes within a map while killing the opposition and hunting for gold. Every success is spread between the team, allowing players to level their heroes up even if they remain cowering in the nearest corner.
Blizzard will release a free-to-play version of the game, but micro-transactions are available to speed up progress. A closed beta is currently in progress and an open beta is scheduled to arrive on May 19, as tweeted by PC Gamer:
Heroes of the Storm will finally be available for PC and Mac on June 2.
The development of e-sports is extremely exciting if you're a gamer, particularly as a diverse selection of products could make it into mainstream view.
Beat-em-ups such as Street Fighter IV and sports titles like FIFA 15 remain popular with online players and could capture the interest of many in e-sports form. Both Sony and Microsoft realise this with the implementation of Twitch.tv on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
We live in an era where, one day, NBA 2K players could become as famous as the men they're controlling.
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