Blizzard’s "Nexus" is basically a graveyard of abandoned potential at this point. It’s sad. But if you actually boot up the game today—yeah, people still play it—you’ll notice something kind of jarring. The Heroes of the Storm models often look way better than their counterparts in the games they actually came from.
Seriously.
Take Arthas. In World of Warcraft, the Lich King has spent years looking like a blocky relic of 2008, even with some minor texture updates. In Heroes of the Storm, he’s got this heavy, tactile weight to his armor that actually makes him feel like an unstoppable death knight. It’s weird. Why did a "side project" MOBA get the premium treatment for iconic characters?
It wasn't just a fluke. The art team, led for a long time by Samwise Didier, had a specific philosophy. They weren't just making 3D assets; they were creating the "Heroic" version of these characters. This meant exaggerating certain features so they’d read well from a top-down camera, while keeping the polygon count high enough that they looked stunning in the shop or on the MVP screen.
The Technical Wizardry Behind Heroes of the Storm Models
Let’s talk shop for a second. Most people think a model is just a skin and some bones, but the Heroes of the Storm models use a specific rendering pipeline that Blizzard refined over years of StarCraft II development. Since the game runs on a heavily modified SC2 engine, the developers had to figure out how to make a single character look detailed without making the game unplayable on a potato laptop.
They used a lot of PBR (Physically Based Rendering) techniques. This essentially determines how light bounces off different surfaces—like the difference between the matte leather on Valla’s boots and the polished chrome of an Artanis blade.
Most MOBAs, like League of Legends, use a more "painted" hand-drawn style. It’s beautiful, but it’s flat. Heroes went the other way. Every model has distinct material properties. If you zoom in on Raynor, you can see the scratches in the paint of his CMC armor. It’s that granular level of detail that makes these models hold up even in 2026.
Why Scaling Was a Nightmare
Think about the scale for a second. You have Murky, who is essentially a wet sardine with legs, and you have Alexstrasza, who can turn into a dragon the size of a house.
Fitting these Heroes of the Storm models into the same playing field required a massive amount of "cheating" in the animation rigs. When Tassadar turns into an Archon, the model isn't just swapping out; it’s a complex transition of particle effects and mesh scaling. The animators had to ensure that even when a character was tiny on screen, you could still recognize their silhouette instantly.
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That’s the "Golden Rule" of Blizzard design: Silhouette is King. If you can’t tell who a character is just by their shadow, the model is a failure.
The "Heroic" Proportion Problem
A lot of fans complained early on that some characters looked "chunky."
Look at Uther. His hammers are the size of trash cans. His shoulders are wider than most doorways. This wasn't because the artists forgot what humans look like. It’s because, in a fast-paced team fight, thin limbs disappear. If you made a realistically proportioned Jaina, she’d look like a toothpick in the middle of a Blizzard (the spell, not the company).
The art team leaned into the "chibi-adjacent" but high-fidelity look. They thickened the wrists, enlarged the weapons, and made sure the heads were just a bit bigger than natural. This is why Heroes of the Storm models feel so meaty. When Diablo slams someone into a wall, the weight of the model carries the impact.
Comparison: HoTS vs. Reforged
Here is a spicy take: The Warcraft III: Reforged models tried to be too realistic and lost the soul of the characters. Meanwhile, the Warcraft heroes in the Nexus kept that chunky, vibrant, "Blizzard Look" that fans actually wanted.
When Malfurion casts Regrowth in HoTS, his model actually reacts. The feathers on his arms have physics. His beard isn't just a static block. It’s a tragedy that these assets aren't being used in a more active game.
The Evolution of Skin Tiers
We can't talk about these models without mentioning the skins. Blizzard broke them down into "Basic," "Epic," and "Legendary." But it wasn't just about color swaps.
A Legendary skin like Mecha Tassadar or Space Lord Leoric actually involved a complete ground-up rebuild of the model. They changed the voice lines, the animations, and even the "mount" logic.
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- Mecha Tyrael: This isn't just Tyrael in a suit. It’s a model with entirely different joint logic to mimic a Japanese Gundam-style robot.
- Janitor Leoric: A fan-favorite that started as a meme. The modelers had to animate a literal mop that functioned as a mace.
- Infested Tychus: This one was legendary because of the biological textures. The "slime" looked wet because of specific shader work that wasn't used on his base model.
The level of effort was, honestly, unsustainable. That’s probably one of the reasons the game’s "cadence" slowed down. Making a single one of these Heroes of the Storm models took months of work from concept art to rigging.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Engine
There’s a common myth that the game looks "old" because it's on the StarCraft II engine. That’s nonsense. The SC2 engine is one of the most stable and high-fidelity RTS engines ever built.
What people are actually seeing is the limitation of the camera height. If you use the "C" key to lock onto your hero and zoom all the way in, the models hold up remarkably well. You can see individual gears turning in Gazlowe's backpack. You can see the glow of the runes on Frostmourne.
The real bottleneck wasn't the models; it was the engine’s inability to reconnect to a match quickly. But the art? The art was peak Blizzard.
The Cancelled Heroes
We know from various leaks and art station posts from former developers that several Heroes of the Storm models were nearly finished before the "Long Sleep" began. Characters like Belial or even more specialized skins for Vashj were in the pipeline.
Seeing the leaked wireframes for some of these unreleased models is a gut punch. The geometry was getting even more complex. They were starting to experiment with more cloth physics and translucent textures for more "ethereal" heroes.
How to View the Models Yourself (The Pro Way)
If you’re a 3D artist or just a nerd who likes looking at high-quality assets, you don't actually have to play the game to see these.
- The In-Game Shop: This is the best way to see the high-poly versions. The game actually swaps out the "gameplay" model for a higher-resolution "viewer" model when you’re in the shop.
- Magos Model Editor: This is an old-school tool, but it works for extracting the .m3 files if you want to poke around the textures.
- Sketchfab: Many former Blizzard artists have uploaded their work there. Searching for "Heroes of the Storm" on Sketchfab lets you rotate the models in 360 degrees, which is the best way to appreciate the topology.
Understanding the Map Models
It wasn't just the heroes. The maps—like Sky Temple or Eternal Conflict—had unique assets that were specifically modeled to fit the theme.
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The "Immortal" models in the BoE map are some of the most complex non-player characters in any MOBA. They have multiple "stages" of model degradation as they lose health. Pieces of armor fly off. Their wings tatter. Most players never notice this because they’re too busy worrying about the enemy team’s flank, but the detail is there.
The Future of Nexus Assets
So, what happens now?
We’re seeing some of these Heroes of the Storm models influence other games. Look at the recent updates to Overwatch 2 or the way Dragonflight handled some of its dragon models. There’s a clear lineage. The "Nexus style" has become a sort of blueprint for how to modernize classic Blizzard characters without losing their identity.
Honestly, the best thing you can do if you appreciate digital art is to go into the game, pick a hero like Deathwing, and just look at the scales. The way the "lava" glows from underneath the plates isn't just a simple texture; it’s a multi-layered emissive map that pulses. It’s a masterclass in optimization.
Actionable Steps for Fans and Creators
If you want to dive deeper into the world of Blizzard's modeling, start by following the lead artists who built the Nexus.
- Look up Samwise Didier’s portfolios: He defined the "big hands, big heart" style.
- Study the concept art of Oscar Vega: Many of the later, more stylish skins came from his desk.
- Analyze the silhouettes: If you’re a character designer, take screenshots of five different heroes and black them out. Notice how you can still tell who is who. That is the pinnacle of model design.
Don't let the "dead game" memes fool you. The craft put into these assets is still some of the best in the industry. Whether you're a player or an aspiring dev, there is a goldmine of technical knowledge buried in those files. Go look at them before the servers eventually go dark for good.
To see these models in their best light, turn your "Models" and "Textures" settings to Ultra, disable the "Physics" if your CPU is struggling, and head into the "Try" mode. It's basically a private sandbox where you can zoom in and see the sheer amount of polygons that went into making a Murky skin look that ridiculous.