These Heroes of the Storm skin concepts make me wish it wasn’t in maintenance mode

DJ and Pop Star skins

Heroes of the Storm skin ideas were among some of the best in any game — back when the game was at its height. That uh, isn’t the case anymore, but these concepts from Blizzard senior artist Juyoung Oh really showcase how creative the team could get.

Found on Reddit, these skins are actually a few years old, and were done during a “HOTS Hackathon” (sprint) in 2018, with Oh revealing them two years ago. Oh calls them a “personal project,” but I can easily see these becoming skins in the game’s heyday.

The skins are DJ Kid Murky, Pop star Li-Ming, and Selfiegenic Stitches. All of them have concept art of various parts of their kit too, and a few are genius. Murky’s egg (where he hibernates if he dies in battle, only to get resurrected quicker than most MOBA characters) has a router and a cell phone charger on it. Li-Ming is centered around a technological-disco theme, and Stitches even puts a party on for people he eats.

Azmodunk was perhaps the best example of how out-there the Heroes of the Storm skin teams could get. They even recorded real basketball noises just for the skin! 2016 Blizzard: it feels like a different timeline.