heroes-of-newerth posts

While technically Heroes of Neweth has been in closed beta for several months, it's been pretty easy to gain access to the beta for S2 Games' upcoming Defense of the Ancients-inspired multiplayer RTS game. We've been awaiting word on when when the final commercial game will be released and in a recent fan podcast call HoNCast some info was revealed about the game's final release date.

S2 Games' marketing manager Laura Baker stated during the podcast that the open beta for the game would be ready "soon" and that S2 Games was going to hold a launch party for Heroes of Newerth on March 25 in San Fransisco. While that date may not be when the actual game is released, she stated they are looking at the month of April for the final commercia version of the game to be ready. As we have reported before the final version will be sold for $30.

With the IGF finalists announced, game makers only have a short while longer to find out the best of the best in indie games from last year. From the best overall game to the one with the most impressive art, there's several different categories for indie game designers to aspire to be the top of. This week we're going to take a look at a few of the games that have made it to the finals.

The games which truly exhibit technical excellence in the indie realm are often praised beyond all potential comparison. After all, technical advances here such as HDR lighting aren't the real technical advances. It's things that alter the gameplay in interesting ways while still being smooth and presentable that really excite indie gamers. It's interesting how graphics advances are praised as advances in visuals, not in technical creation, where other things are. Here's five games that just can't fit in any other category at the IGF thanks to their unrelenting technical improvements.

Technically S2 Games' upcoming multiplayer action-RTS game Heroes of Newerth has been in closed beta for quite some time. However today the developer has decided to open the flood gates and let anyone sign up to play their game, which is blatantly inspired by Defense of the Ancients.

The open beta registration has a small catch. It's only available to the public until the end of the day on Christmas Day. While the web site is also taking both gift and personal purchases of the full game for $30, there's still no word on when Heroes of Newerth will come out of its beta state and actually become a commercial title.

[Via Blue's News]

The current lead developer behind the popular Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients has made the suprising announcement that he is "now leading a team at Valve". Presumably he means the same Valve that has mostly worked on first person shooter game titles like Half-Life and Left 4 Dead. In his announcement on the official DotA page "IceFrog" (that's the only name he goes by) he stats that now he has "all the resources needed to do some very exciting stuff that you guys will love. I look forward to revealing more specific details when the time is right."

This would certainly be a change of pace for Valve if they decide to develop a DotA-like game. The mod has become an inspiration for a number of current and upcoming commercial games including Demigod, Heroes of Newerth and League of Legends (who have former DotA team members as part of their dev team).

[Via Shacknews]

The first full trailer for Heroes of Newerth reveals much more than gameplay that's in the same vein as the Defense of the Ancients mod for Warcraft III. it lists the numerous features that will be in place to ensure players have the best gaming experience possible. Everything from setting up a lag-free game, to cheat protection, to reconnecting dropped players to their game will be included in Heroes of Newerth. Let's not forget that the game will also include built in voice communication, so it would seem that there's very little the game lacks... besides an official release date. Heroes of Newerth is currently still in closed beta and is expected to release late this year.

Download HD Heroes of Newerth Trailer (77 MB)

We gave away a ton of beta keys for the game earlier this year but until today developer S2 Games has officially been keeping silent on their plans for their next game Heroes of Newerth. Today that changed with a official press release announcing that the final commerical version of the game will be released for the PC, Mac and even Linux before the end of the year for $30.

The game's official web site has also gone live with more info, screenshots and videos from the game which is not afraid to say that it takes most of its inspiration from the Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients. Heroes of Newerth is also an multiplayer fantasy action-RPG where players control a number of Hero units and their minions in matches to take out an opponant team's base. The game will also support VoIP out of the box along with a map editor, matchmaking, stats and ladder support and more. Technically the game is in closed beta testing now but S2 Games has released a ton of beta keys already. In fact they state that there are 350,000 registered beta players and that the beta has had up to 25,000 people play only during peak hours.

S2 Games is still putting their Defense of the Ancients inspired game Heroes of Newerth though its paces via a beta test. We gave out 200 of these keys several weeks ago but the development team is still giving out beta invites via their Facebook page.

You could just become a fan of the game or you could head directly to the beta invite page, put in your email address and get your key before they run out (about15,000 keys are still available as of this news posts). There's still no word yet on when Heroes of Newerth will come out of beta and launch its full (and we presume commercial) game.

Want to try out this still mysterious game for yourself? Just send an email to contests@bigdownload.com with the subject line "Heroes of Newerth Beta" and we'll send you a free beta key. Once you receive it you can head over to the game's beta page where you can put in your code. Keep in mind that once the 200 codes are gone we might not get any more so now's the time to request them. And thanks to S2 Games for providing the beta keys.



If you want a very brief look at the gameplay you can check out the video after the jump:

Usually when a game is ready to be revealed, the publisher or developer like to make a big splash with a press release, screenshots,videos and the like. However the folks at S2 Games, best known for their Savage series of RTS-FPS hybrid games, are taking a different viral approach to reveal their next game project Heroes of Newerth.

Basically the team sent no emails to the media and made no phone calls via a PR rep but rather let their die hard Savage fans get the first jump on the game announcement and let things kind of spiral out from there. In fact there's very little public info on Heroes of Newerth other than it seems to be a fantasy RTS game that fans of the Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients might want to look into. The company is giving out beta keys to select folks and we hope to contact S2 Games to gets some of our own to give to our readers. In the meantime you can check out a very brief gameplay video after the jump.