Heroes of the Storm Imports Overwatch's Brawl Mode for Some Crazy Match Types

Heroes of the Storm is again drawing inspiration from fellow Blizzard game Overwatch. After bringing over its post-game accomplishments screen, HotS will soon feature a weekly Brawl mode that messes around with the game's rules in different ways.

Each week's Heroes Brawl changes things up in one of several ways. There can be special rules about which characters can be played, such as giving everyone the same character or randomizing who you end up as. Hammer Time is one example: everyone plays at Sgt. Hammer, but with her thrusters permanently engaged (letting you speed around the map). Others may put everyone in Nova's shoes and make it so her Snipe ability instantly kills enemies.

Maps can be adjusted so that your goal is no longer to destroy the enemy's core (or to do so in a specific way). Blizzard described the Punisher Arena where you earn points by killing enemy heroes and punishers, with teams racing to get to 100 points. Sky Temple Arena sounds as if you can only damage the core by capturing temples around the map. Garden Arena asks teams to be the first to collect 100 seeds, obtained by killing Garden Terrors and Shamblers. The aforementioned Hammer Time asks you to capture towers to win. There's also a one-lane map, the previously announced Lost Cavern, that will show up.

Blizzard said there are "a substantial number" of mutators that can be modified, though it didn't want to spoil the the surprises. "Suffice to say, expect these gameplay modifiers to add completely new and unexpected quirks to drastically change how you play Heroes of the Storm," it said.

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Special rewards will be available for playing Brawls. These include new portraits and 1,000 gold for playing three in any given week.

Heroes Brawls will debut with the public test realm on October 10, followed by a launch in the live game on October 17.

This is an evolution of Arena mode, which was first revealed last year. We recently spoke with Blizzard about how that turned into Heroes Brawl and learned some additional deals about how it will work.