July 31, 2011 by Paul Curtin
With Valve making their smash hit Team Fortress 2 free-to-play just one month ago, it’s no surprise that their future competition, S2 Games, has switched Heroes of Newerth to a free-to-play model too. Heroes of Newerth already started a micro-transaction in-game shop months ago to compete with their current competition League of Legends (another successful DotA-style game which is free-to-play), so it was only a matter of time before S2 made the plunge and offered their entire game for free.
HoN‘s community has been growing with the help of competitive streams like Honcast regularly broadcasting on the popular streaming site Justin.tv. There is a lot of speculation that with Valve developing Defense of the Ancients 2 and recently making TF2 free-to-play, that Valve might launch DotA 2 as a free game with an emphasis on micro-transactions. With HoN over a year old and a potentially free DotA 2 right around the corner, it’s clear why the switch was made by S2 Games. You can check out more info on the update and download the full game on the official Heroes of Newerth site.
