For those who are fans of Blizzard’s games, especially the StarCraft franchise, you might be familiar with Tychus who is a prominent StarCraft character. In the game’s artwork, the character can clearly be seen smoking a cigar. In fact the trailer for StarCraft 2 very prominently featured the cigar as well, but it seems that for Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard has decided to do away with that particular character trait.
Unsurprisingly many fans were upset at the removal, with a Reddit thread being started that reads, “YES. We know smoking is bad, everybody does. BUT! it’s not Blizzard’s job to make sure we don’t do it anyway. It’s an iconic part of the Tychus character. BRING BACK HIS CIGAR!” At the same time there were fans who were understanding of Blizzard’s choice as the inclusion of cigar could impact the game’s launch in certain markets.
A Blizzard developer took the time to respond to the thread, claiming that because they were aiming for a teen rating, there are many guidelines the developer has to follow and in a bid to make the game as widely available as possible, they opted to remove the cigar. The dev states that Blizzard could have made two models for different markets, but added that this would result in more unnecessary work, which is why removing the cigar was the easier and more efficient solution.
We suppose this is only a big deal depending how hardcore of a fan you are. However with Blizzard presumably planning to make Heroes of the Storm as competitive as League of Legends and DotA 2, making it as accessible as possible is a good place to start. In the meantime the game is currently in open beta and has been pegged for an official release come 2nd of June.
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