What I set out to talk about today is a comparison between League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm, but in the process of trying to explain that, I have to explain my entire philosophy on what good strategy game design looks like.Įven though they might appear to be quite similar, and even though Heroes of the Storm makes a lot of good design calls, League of Legends is a far, far better strategy game than Heroes of the Storm. We see them a few times here and there, but they soon disappear altogether and we eventually give up and move on. But in today’s games, these moments are fleeting. Moments where you really have a serious decision to make. If you look for it, you can see it in little moments, here and there. The strategy games that exist today – 4X, some Rogue-likes, Dota-likes and above all, designer board games – only hint at the possibilities that strategy games offer. This is something that really does distinguish me from a lot of my peers in game design, who believe that the whole concept behind strategy games is just one “aesthetic” among many that are more or less equal. “Replay value”, and even most game design discussions on “emergence” are only the tips of the iceberg.Īt least, that is how I see it. They, and only they, have the potential to be interesting and surprising repeatedly, for years or even decades. Of all the kinds of interactive entertainment we make, I see strategy games as having by far the most potential. So right now, you kind of can just interchange one thing for another without noticing too much of a difference, at least… for a while.
We live in a world of fractionally-baked strategy games, and fully-baked puzzles, toys, and contests. In practice, this makes total sense, because no existing strategy game has fulfilled what I see as the promise of strategy games. Players can and will interchange a Civilization for a Super Mario Bros, let alone a Heroes of the Storm for a League of Legends. Some of them are more strategy-ish, some are more puzzle-ish, some are more like novels, but ultimately some are fun and some aren’t. To most people, there are a bunch of interactive entertainment titles out there. Over the years of talking about strategy game design, one thing that has become apparent to me is that I see a potential in strategy games that other people don’t. If you would like to support my work, please visit my Patreon page and become a Patron! Special thanks to Aaron Oman for his support. For more, check out my article on why I consider League of Legends to be the world’s greatest game.
I’ve got a new video out discussing why I think League of Legends is not only better than Heroes, it’s not even in the same, well, league.
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