Blizzard has also announced that a 'significant' amount of alpha invites has been issued

Jul 2, 2014 07:41 GMT  ·  By

Video game developer Blizard Entertainment has announced the launch of several Sydney-based servers, meant to support Australian and New Zealand gamers' participation in the company's upcoming multiplayer online battle arena game, Heroes of the Storm.

The game offers a combination of heroes from all across Blizard's major franchises, Diablo, StarCraft and WarCraft, and will be a free-to-play digital-only title, supported by microtransactions, much in the way Riot Games' League of Legends and Valve's Dota 2 work.

Blizzard has refrained from calling Heroes of the Storm an outright MOBA and has instead opted for the moniker "hero brawler," referencing the different, broader play style that the game encourages.

This is the second time that Blizzard is putting its men at work Down Under, the first instance of this being for the launch of Reaper of Souls, the first expansion to the action role-playing game Diablo 3.

The local game servers inauguration also coincided with a "significant" amount of invitations to the Heroes of the Storm technical alpha for Australian and New Zealand players, according to Blizzard.

Gamers who will receive invitations will be able to see the appropriate flag upon logging into their Battle.net account.

For the time being, Blizzard has not issued any expected release window for the upcoming Heroes of the Storm. The game entered its technical alpha phase earlier this year, in March.