Heroes of the Storm

Well thanks, internet, now "Riders on the Storm" is playing in my head. Actually, that's not such a terrible thing. Whatever.

Anyway, back to the rumor mill, supposedly Blizzard has trademarked "Heroes of the Storm" as the name of a new computer game in New Zealand. Might this be the name of the next expansion? Or is it as empty as "The Dark Below," which we've mostly decided was a hoax.

So, as with TDB, the usual caveats should apply. First off, we don't know for certain that this is for real. The Dark Below looked pretty legit until Corgis Unleashed was similarly trademarked.

But for the sake of argument, let's assume this one is legit. It still doesn't mean it's a World of Warcraft expansion. Granted, with Reaper of Souls confirmed as the expansion to Diablo III, and the foreknowledge of Legacy of the Void as Starcraft II's next expansion, it seems unlikely that this could be for either of those properties. On the other hand, it could be for Hearthstone, but given that Hearthstone isn't even out of its closed beta, I doubt that.

So, Heroes of the Storm. Does that sound like a WoW expansion? In the past, the expansions have always been named after bad things. The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, and even Mists of Pandaria (though the fact that the mists were actually the work of the Sha of Pride was kind of a shocking plot-twist.)

"Heroes" seems to imply good guys, and it's not like there's a rule saying the title of an expansion has to be whatever bad thing we're facing.

"Storm" could refer to any number of things. In fact, Warcraft lore is full of storms. You have the Stormrage brothers, you have Stormwind City (doesn't it seem like Stormwind should constantly be drenched in rain?) You have Orcish Shamans who are super into "Storm Earth and Fire," even though that's a Monk ability. The old Orcs are all about their Altars of Storm. There's the Maelstrom... just kidding! That's "strom," rather than "storm."

Honestly, this is such a broad name (not unlike the Dark Below) that it could mean any number of things. Frankly, I think that such a name would point more toward the fabled "South Seas expansion," even though there are tons of hints in Mists that we're fighting the Legion again, and there's also the fact that Pandaria is kind of already in the South Seas.

Yet who knows? It could be referring to all kinds of other things. The Titans tend to be pretty lightning-oriented, so we could even see this as a Titan-themed expansion.

Ultimately, though, I've become a bit more skeptical. While Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria were named long before their official announcements at Blizzcon, given that we have two fairly legitimate-sounding expansion names tossed out there, it makes both seem less likely.

Blizzcon starts on November 8th, and I'm sure the announcement will be at the very start of the event, which means we have less than a month and a half until we find out. I'll be very curious to see if any of these were actually the real deal. (It's Corgis man. Totally Corgis.)

UPDATE: Looks like the game is meant to be played on tablets and smartphones, so I'm confident saying that even if it is legit, it's not going to be the new WoW expansion.