One of the great things about Blizzard is how they aren’t shy about making references to various things that have influenced them or making inside jokes with the various characters of the game through easter eggs with things like character poke quotes, /dance animations, or other assorted references like quest titles, flavor text for items and other small details.

Heroes of the Storm is no different. Described as a “love letter to the fans”, the game is a great mash-up of other Blizzard titles, references to a multitude of other sources such as other video games, movies, TV shows, or comic books and this article series is going to attempt to document as many of them as possible!

That being said, I might miss stuff or be completely off the ball with some of my interpretations, so I'll leave it up to you guys to decide whether I'm on the mark or not. (Hopefully I'll be batting a little higher than .500...) I'll also be starting off with the Warcraft universe first, for a couple of reasons. One, it's the universe I'm most familiar with and two, Warcraft characters comprise the majority of heroes that are in the game, so it makes sense to start there first since there's so many of them. I'll also be doing this list alphabetically, so if there's a Hero you want to be seeing, just keep your eyes peeled until we get to that point.

Alexstrasza

Alexstrasza's base skin has a few references going on. The most obvious being with the Jade tint which references another dragon aspect, Ysera, specifically the old model that was used for Ysera during Wrath of the Lich King, which used a Night Elf model as the base.

The Ascendant tint could be referencing Alarak and the Tal'darim from the Starcraft universe, but I think it could also be referencing the Dragon Roost building from Warcraft 2. You see, the first time that Alexstrasza makes an appearance in the Warcraft universe is in Warcraft 2 where she's captured by the Horde, and the Dragon Roost building uses the same colors that is used on this skin and I happen to think that this is intentional.

The last tint for Alex's base skin may be a reference to Jessica Nigri, a famous cosplayer, and a famous cosplay she did based on Arthas' frost wyrm, Sindragosa. Heroes players should recognize Sindragosa as one of Arthas' Heroics and the concept art and finished cosplay both match up pretty closely to what Alexstrasza looks like with this tint. Finally, the name of this tint, Saronite, is pretty clearly a nod to Wrath of the Lich King-era World of Warcraft as Saronite was a mineable ore that players used back then. Blizzard isn't too shy about giving shoutouts to players in their games and that might be what's going on here.

Now, talking about her Aspect skin, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot going on, although the Kaldorei tint -- Kaldorei being a "fancy" word for Night Elf in Warcraft circles -- is most likely a reference to Ysera's updated model that came out in the Cataclysm expansion, and the Timeless tint is pretty clearly a nod to the Bronze Dragonflight, which is the Dragonflight that Chromie is a part of.

And last but not least, there are 2 potential easter eggs with the Dark Queen skin. The first, and most obvious, is the Divine Tint, which is pretty clearly a nod to Sailor Mars from the anime Sailor Moon, while the second tint might be a nod to Rita Repulsa from the Power Rangers reboot film.

Anub'arak

Moving on to Anub'arak, his base skin mirrors how he was originally depicted in Warcraft 3, with his master skin being a fancier depiction of the same. His Desert tint is based on how some Crypt Lords are depicted in Wrath of the Lich King, as well as his appearance in the 5-man dungeon Azjol-Nerub, while the master recolor of this skin is called Silithus, which references an old Vanilla zone in World of Warcraft which featured silithids, who were insectoids similar to Anub'arak.

The Frozen tint references Anub'arak's appearance in Trial of the Crusader which was a raid that took place in Northrend, with Northrend being the name of the master recolor.

The Cyb'arak skins have a couple of movie references. The base tint is pretty clearly an homage to Bumblebee from the Transformers universe, specifically the Michael Bay movies, as the yellow paint job and blue eyes are a pretty clear parallel, while the Cobalt skin could be a nod to the Pacific Rim movies and the Jaeger Gipsy Danger, which makes sense if you read the flavor text for this skin.

Shifting over to the Anub'alisk skin, the skin itself is inspired by the Ultralisks from the Starcraft universe. The Omega tint refers to a strain of Ultralisk known as the Omegalisk. The Omegalisk was a scrapped unit that ended up becoming a campaign only unit in Wings of Liberty and basically could be classified as an Ultralisk on steroids. The Kaldir tint is a thematically appropriate name and coloration for Anub as Kaldir is an ice planet and Anub'arak hails from Northrend, which is an arctic wasteland, the Venomous tint is probably another Starcraft nod, referring to the Noxious strain of Ultralisk that could be found in the Ultralisk Evolution mission in Heart of the Swarm.

I have one more easter egg with Anub'arak, this time with the Love Bug skin. The Iridescent tint appears to be patterned after a June bug. Why a June bug? Well, in some parts of the world, it’s used as a term of affection, which would make sense with a lovey-dovey tint like this.

(Photo credit: Pexels)

Arthas

Now we start getting into some really cool stuff with Arthas. The Tundra tint on his base skin may be the most obscure easter egg I've managed to uncover. The tint for this skin appears to be inspired by the original conception of what death knights were intended to look like in Warcraft 3.

Old school Warcraft players may recognize this concept art as resembling the revenants that were guarding Frostmourne in the Human campaign, while World of Warcraft players may find the art similar to the revenants found in Northrend. The coloration for it makes sense, as Arthas isn't typically very shiny in his depictions. The Saronite tint may seem to reference how Arthas is depicted in some art from Blizzard, most notably the Northrend loading screen during Wrath of the Lich King. Finally, the Tarnished tint might be a nod to another infamous death knight, Lord Soth from the Dungeons and Dragons Dragonlance setting.

Flipping over to the Crown Prince Arthas skin, a little bit of background on this. First off, the skin was originally conceived as a skin for Uther as the plan was originally to depict Arthas with his hammer, rather than with Frostmourne. As well, there's a couple of scrapped tints for this skin which featured Arthas with red coloration and a Horde insignia on his cloak as well as a white-themed tint with the Alliance lion on his back.

The red tint did make its way in as the Stromgarde tint, which references an Alliance nation that is typically associated with the color red. Also, interestingly, the Stromgarde tint is pretty thematically appropriate for Arthas as there are similarities between the Prince of Stromgarde, Galen Trollbane and Arthas: both were princes of an Alliance nation who betrayed their fathers and ended up as undead. Only... Galen's fate was a little more undignified...

The other tints for the Crown Prince skin reference colors from other Alliance nations. The Kul'Tiras tint matches up quite well with the colors of Kul’Tiras, as I'm sure everyone playing Battle for Azeroth is well aware of and the purple-hued tint references Dalaran and the Kirin Tor.

With the Frost Wyrm skin, it appears to be inspired by the Wrathful Gladiator's Dreadplate Armor, which was the Season 8 PVP armor for Death Knights. If you look at the shoulders for both the armor and the skin they both seem to be pretty similar. As well, the Flesh tint might be taking its coloration from the Hateful Gladiator's Dreadplate Armor which was another PVP set for Death Knights.

Closing things out for Arthas is the Mystic Kingdoms skin, which is one of a few skins that Blizzard has actually acknowledged the inspiration for. You can really see these details come out with the glowing red face, the flowing beard and having Frostmourne patterned after Guan Yu's Green Dragon Crescent Blade, which incidentally resembles the model of multiple polearms that could be found in Mists of Pandaria.

Finally, I don't know if this is intentional or not but some of the other tints for this skin do seem to reference tints of Guan Yu from the Dynasty Warriors games. He is occasionally depicted with a yellow or white tint before he becomes affiliated with the "green" nation of Shu. As well, Guan Yu serves for a time under the "blue" nation of Wei and has a palette swap reflecting that in the Dynasty Warriors games.

Brightwing

The last Hero I'm going to talk about before we bring this first article to a close will be Brightwing.

The Darkwing tint on her base skin refers to one of Brightwing's poke quotes, which references her "older, meaner brother," while the Tropical tint is a backwards easter egg. The coloration is very similar to a pet that was added in Legion called the Sun Darter Hatchling. Prior to that, faerie dragons were pretty much depicted with the same model and coloration everywhere in World of Warcraft, so this seems to be an instance of World of Warcraft potentially drawing from Heroes of the Storm, given that there are a number of Heroes of the Storm references throughout Legion. Also, while we're talking about Brightwing's base skin, the Primal Tint is similar to other Zerg-based skins with the same name and is probably a nod to the Primal Zerg.

Beyond that, the default tint for Brightwing's Monarch skin has a cute pun referencing Monarch butterflies, the Nether Monarch tint looks to be a reference to Netherwing dragons which are a subspecies of dragon that were introduced in Burning Crusade-era World of Warcraft and the Emerald tint is another nod to the Green Dragonflight and the Emerald Dream.

We'll close out this article by taking a look at what is objectively the best skin in the game -- the Luxorian Monkey Skin. There may be a couple of nods to classic children's literature here, most obviously with the model being based off of the Winged Monkeys from the Wizard of Oz. But the second tint may be a nod to Pippi Longstocking, as the red pigtails are pretty distinctive of the character and personality-wise, Pippi is pretty similar to Brightwing.

As well, Pippi is friends with a monkey and, well, this is a monkey skin. The Elder tint could also be referencing the original illustrations of the Winged Monkeys by W.W. Denslow in the original Wizard of Oz books. The coloration is kind of similar, although I don't know if this is merely a coincidence or not. I'll leave it up to you guys to decide.

(Photo credit: Pexels)

That’s everything to cover in Part 1 of this ongoing series, keep your eyes on the lookout for Part 2 and feel free to share any skin references that may have been missed with us!

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