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Project KONGOR, a community-led recreation of the original Heroes of Newerth (HoN) game, is shutting down on Dec. 4, as per an announcement by the creators.
Posted on the game’s official Discord, the announcement was met with ire from the community, as fans find themselves disappointed with the closure, and Project KONGOR’s other HoN revival project, Heroes of Newerth: Reborn.
Heroes of Newerth was one of the original stand-alone recreations of the MOBA progenitor Warcraft III mod, DotA Allstars. A vital part of esports history, HoN was the stomping ground of many famous Dota 2 pros old and new, including the recently retired Aydin “Insania” Sarkohi, who was a HoN Tour World Champion.
After originally being developed by S2 Games, HoN was sold to Garena, and passed to a new developer. With a declining player base, largely due to competition from titles like League of Legends and Dota 2, the original HoN game closed in 2022. Project KONGOR began in August 2022, launching into open beta just a few months after the closure of HoN by Garena.
KONGOR became the only remaining way to play HoN and quickly gathered a small but dedicated following. That following grew over the past few years, culminating in the announcement that the Project KONGOR team, under the mantle of KONGOR Studios, had, in January 2025, acquired a license to recreate and release a new version of HoN, entitled Heroes of Newerth: Reborn.
The hype for the updated game was initially very high, as fans had been missing the game, and its unique heroes, for years. What’s more, the backing of the Project KONGOR team (now KONGOR Studios) seemed to signal that the development was in safe hands.
Heroes of Newerth: Reborn in some ways replaced Project KONGOR. Image Credit: KONGOR Studios
However, suspicion and doubt began to creep into the community over the choice of platform (Juvio, formerly iGaming) and the involvement of past developers. Beyond this, closed alpha and beta testers were reportedly faced with paid cosmetics while playing the game. This led to a general discomfort in the HoN community.
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All of this culminated in the official release of Heroes of Newerth: Reborn on Nov. 11. Unfortunately, the restriction to the Juvio platform, and a number of other complaints by users, led to a (reportedly) small player base. Even the announcement in late October of a $100,000 prize pool tournament seemingly couldn’t help.
Now, some observers and HoN players are suggesting that KONGOR Studios may deliberately be shuttering Project KONGOR to force more users onto Heroes of Newerth: Reborn. The tactic seems short-sighted. While many may make the jump, many more will likely be upset with the studio’s transparent push for more users.
With the closure of Project KONGOR, many are citing this as the latest death of Heroes of Newerth. By some counts, this could be the third time that HoN has died. Firstly when it was sold by original developers S2 Games to Garena in 2015, and secondly when the new owners decided to shutter it in 2022.
And, tragically, if HoN: Reborn fails to see success, we could witness an unprecedented fourth death of the game. It looks like even a buyback or a Token of Life couldn’t keep Heroes of Newerth alive.
Featured Image Credit: KONGOR STUDIOS
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