In 2010, the MOBA Heroes of Newerth (HoN) was released as a competitor to League of Legends. However, it was more oriented towards the original version of DotA and offered some differences. In recent years, however, it no longer played a major role. It was discontinued in June 2022.

When did HoN die? Heroes of Newerth was discontinued on June 20, 2022. However, this discontinuation did not come as a surprise:

The MOBA accompanied players for almost 12 years and was even able to achieve great success in the beginning. However, it was unable to hold its own against LoL and later DOTA 2. We reveal what caused the game to fail and what made it so special.

Heroes of Newerth relied on Deny and Buy2Play – and had initial success

What made Heroes of Newerth so special? The basic principle of the game with its champions, lanes and towers is almost identical to LoL. But it was in the subtleties that Heroes of Newerth offered some differences:

• You could deny enemies gold and experience points by killing your own minions and towers. For this you use the English term “deny”.
• The MOBA was released as a full-price title. In return, however, all champions were unlocked directly. Later, they also switched to Free2Play.
• The game was much darker than the colorful LoL.

Overall, Heroes of Newerth was considered significantly more complex and challenging than LoL.

How successful was HoN? Around the same time as LoL, Heroes of Newerth also launched its beta. From 2009 until around mid-2012, it was LoL’s biggest competitor – also because DotA itself was only usable as a mod for Warcraft 3.

HoN’s player numbers were significantly lower, but it was the strongest alternative on the market. Then in 2012, Smite and DOTA 2 appeared, and in 2015, Heroes of Storm, Blizzard’s MOBA, joined them. However, Heroes of Newerth was able to keep up well with these three competitors for a long time. Only DOTA 2 pulled away over time, but it never came close to LoL’s success.

Player numbers of major MOBAs from 2011 to 2015 (via SuperData).

Heroes of Newerth fails due to balance problems and too strong competition

Why did HoN fail? At release, Heroes of Newerth was described as the “best DOTA clone on the market.” It had fewer players due to the price hurdle, but players who would have liked more depth in LoL were especially interested.

In 2011, the game switched to a Free2Play model and experienced a “small boom”, as you can also see in the graph above. However, this boom was not enough, partly because many players appreciated LoL’s beginner-friendliness. But for fans of HoN, there were even negative consequences with the switch to Free2Play. New champions were released that were far too strong. These champions also had to be purchased separately – even by players who had previously paid full price for Heroes of Newerth. This did not go down well.

Interest in the MOBA decreased noticeably around 2014. There were two reasons for this:

• On the one hand, Valve’s DOTA 2 became more and more popular. Especially the DOTA fans who had previously played Heroes of Newerth switched from the “clone” to the “original”.
• Then in 2015 there was a change at the developer studio and a new publisher took over. After that, the regular updates are said to have been significantly less.

Now Heroes of Newerth is finally over. In the official forum, some players who will miss HoN have spoken out in recent days. What do you think about the old MOBA? Did you like playing it before or did it completely pass you by? Will you miss it? Feel free to post it in the comments.

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