by JR Cook - 11 years ago     show comments

The last couple months have been the saga of the Blizzard trademarks and we have a new one that popped up in New Zealand.

In the last couple months now we have seen trademarked “Cute but Deadly” – which is a new toy line Blizzard is coming out with announced at the San Diego Comic Con, Reaper of Souls which we know is D3 expansion name, and The Dark Below which is rumored to possibly be a hoax and is now missing from both US and Europe trademark systems.

Now we have a new one, in New Zealand, titled “Heroes of the Storm”. So like all trademarks this leads to speculation on what it could be – several people already pointing at the next WoW expansion. However, let’s look a little deeper into this and potentially ignore the fact that much like The Dark Below, this could be another hoax.

First, what we know it’s not – Diablo or StarCraft expansion. Diablo already has Reaper of Souls and StarCraft has Legacy of the Void. Furthermore, it wouldn’t be very smart to have the next StarCraft expansion also have the acronym of HotS (Heart of the Swarm, Heroes of the Storm). We also know it’s probably not a toy product or novel or anything like that – the trademark specifies it’s computer software.

What it is probably not – the CCG expansion for Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. Team 5 has said on numerous occasions they are focused right now on releasing the game and currently don’t have any concrete plans on when or how expansions might work with the game. I honestly don’t see a card expansion for the game for 6-12 months after release.

What it could be: The next WoW expansion. I personally doubt it, but it’s possible. I feel the name is better than “The Dark Below” which I was going to make fun of for eternity if that ended up being the expansion name, but it seems like a weird name for a WoW expansion. I mean, we have Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, and Mists of Pandaria. It doesn’t seem like Heroes of the Storm really fits.

It could also be Blizzard rebranding their MOBA game again, originally called Blizzard DOTA but after a legal battle with Valve got renamed to Blizzard All Stars, could Blizzard reveal it again at BlizzCon with the revamped version and have it called Heroes of the Storm? I think it’s quite possible.

Last, but not least, and the one that I think is probably most likely – it’s an all new game. Possibly mobile related and something Team 5 has been working on. Remember when they revealed Hearthstone and that Team 5 was going to be working on several different projects? This could very well be the next project, whatever it may be.

So those are my thoughts, what are yours? Let us know in the comments if you think this trademark is real, a hoax, and if real – what do you think it could be?