Heroes of the Storm has always been a game about celebrating the best characters from Blizzard’s storied past and bringing them into the current day with a modernized gameplay kit, design and voice acting. Some characters, like Tassadar and Stukov, exist in the vast canon of StarCraft’s history. These heroes might be lost to time for many Blizzard fans if it weren’t for Heroes of the Storm bringing them back into the spotlight and giving them a new, cranked-up-to-11 skill set.

With the 20th anniversary of the StarCraft franchise upon us, it's time to look at the StarCraft roster of Heroes of the Storm, and especially the newest member of the roster. Fenix has been hotly demanded and wildly anticipated for years. How does he live up to that hype? Red Bull Esports sat down in an exclusive roundtable with Hero Designer Jade Martin and Animator Lana Bachynski to talk everything Fenix and Heroes of the Storm, where we discussed everything from making characters clear to giving them meta-shaking, planet-cracking kits.

Bringing Fenix to the Nexus

Fans of the original StarCraft have been hoping for Fenix since the early days of Heroes of the Storm. Fenix was a stalwart, heroic Protoss Zealot who embodied the best aspects of his race. The ideal Protoss Warrior, Fenix could “throw down with the best of them.” After his death, the Zealot was brought back as a Dragoon, and continued to fight on the front lines of the Brood Wars.

The game was ready for a new ranged hero, and with the 20th anniversary of StarCraft approaching, there was no better time to bring Fenix into the game. “We’re always contemplating when we can bring a fan favorite into Heroes and we were looking for the right moment,” Jade Martin explained. “We wanted him to be a Dragoon, and tap into that fantasy of the ranged basic attacker.”

That decision allowed the team to hone on a very specific gameplay niche, and not over-generalize. “From the design standpoint, it was actually really difficult because people remember him fondly from his different eras,” Martin said. Ultimately, Artanis had already fulfilled the Zealot role, and the Dragoon provided an interesting opportunity to provide an interesting silhouette and have the character immediately stand out in hero select.

That silhouette provided the art team with a fascinating challenge. Lana Bachynski was tasked with making Fenix feel like a Dragoon, from his walk cycle to his arsenal of ranged attacks. “This hero from the Protoss universe, a Dragoon is such an iconic space with that silhouette. It was exciting to have this new shape that was so identifiable and cool.” Of course, it wasn’t easy to bring Fenix to life. He was a massive technical challenge; even getting him to move required work and thought. He does not rotate; his knees are static, his body stable, and his legs push him forward in a mechanical, alien way while his top half rotates. “It gives a physical callback to what an OG Dragoon felt like.”

Dragoon damage

Fenix’s kit provides him with countless power-ups and classic references to StarCraft, and that means he’s not just another ranged assassin — he’s a StarCraft Dragoon, brought to life. “I think the kit will really speak to how unique he is, and the various powerups he gets through his talent and how you want to build him.”

Martin elaborated: “It’s a nice gift to be able to take these original units from StarCraft.” The Dragoon fantasy was focused on the heavy phasma attack. “With Fenix, we looked at what a Dragoon can possibly do.”

The W was the main ability that played into the fantasy of a Dragoon, allowing Fenix to bombard enemies from afar. “We have this cool Q plasma cutter that allows us to have a regular range that sweeps the area around him. His W lets him switch between two weapons.” The W is a play on upgrading and evolving in StarCraft, making your unit more powerful. Of course, in the Nexus, Fenix doesn’t need to rely on the Forge.

Then of course there’s Warp, as classic a Protoss ability as a Zerg’s creep or a Terran’s affinity for extremely large and dangerous guns. As a hero of the Protoss race, it took a significant effort to make him feel like the icon of a Protoss while still giving him his own unique space. His early playtests were focused on making sure his kit was distinguishable and unique from other ranged heroes; Fenix should play like Fenix, the Dragoon from StarCraft legend. If he feels like a Valla, a Hammer, a Greymane or a Hanzo, something has gone terribly wrong.

Keeping Fenix fresh

“We ask what this character is good at, and what makes them distinct,” Martin said. “What makes Fenix distinct is his Q - which is a targeting system we haven’t had before — and his W.” By switching between weapon types, Fenix can adapt to the enemy team and never fall out of relevancy. His shields, bolstered by his passive, make him a potent laner. Fenix is an assassin, but he should never feel like he’s unable to stand up to his foes.

That being said, Fenix still has his weaknesses. The team wanted Fenix to feel like a Protoss hero, and that included giving him shields, but they couldn’t overload him too much. “We don’t give every Protoss unit everything a Protoss has ever had,” Martin said. “For instance, Artanis and Fenix both have shields, but [their shields] function very, very differently. We can take advantage of technology from those different races, but we have to be very careful with overloading kits too much.”

A big part of making the new hero feel like Fenix and like a Dragoon was his art design. Probius is a cheerful Probe who is oddly relatable and even human with his bubbly animations and big, twinkling eye. Fenix, on the other hand, is described as stoic and robotic; the team wanted to make him feel like a robot above all else, and especially not an organic creepy crawler like a spider.

Bachynski found that developing Fenix required a balance, focused around giving him a personality and a strong sense of character without relying on shorthand that made the player think of a giant spider or a human character trapped in a construct. Fenix may be robotic, but he still has a personality. “There are moments where you can see his personality, with his happy dance and his more aggressive taunt where you can see a more organic mind inside of that creature.”

From StarCraft to Co-op Commander to Hero of the Storm © Blizzard Entertainment

Homecoming for a hero

Fenix was a tough hero to reimagine and reinvent for the Nexus. The team knew this was a legacy character fans wanted, and they would have high standards for his kit. On the other hand, they couldn’t just put him in without bringing him up to modern standards and focus on a very particular sense of his identity. “We want to live up to the expectation of incredibly fun, vibrant, and dynamic and responsive feeling heroes,” Bachynski said, explaining the conflict. “We want to write this fantasy where people are like ‘yeah, I’m playing the Dragoon!” but also give them the feeling of playing something new. We never want to give them exactly what they expect, because they won’t make new memories around it.”

Ultimately, Fenix centers on one element of his classic StarCraft history and polishes that experience to excellence. Not only is he a classic hero, but he brings the Dragoon to life. Once you try the Planet Cracker, you can understand the might the Protoss can bring to bear. It’s the exact kind of experience that Blizzard wants to create in Heroes of the Storm: Nostalgic, yet, new, and backed by expert design to give the feeling that you’re at the wheel of a powerhouse.