Dota Underlords, another one of Valve’s viral mods turned into games, will get it's free to play official release on Steam at the end of this month, February 25. The game will be available on both PC and mobile (Android and iOS). The game would be crossplay with PC and mobile players being on the same server.

Underlords Preview
The game is finally getting a full release

The game was initially revealed back in May 2019, as part of Steam Early Access. It was completely based on a custom arcade map of Dota 2 named Auto Chess made by Drodo Studio. The map went viral before that, with over 8 million players amassed. While Drodo was approached by Valve, he eventually refused – with an agreement that both sides would be able to work on their own standalone version of the game.

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Underlords has been in the red ever since

Drodo’s version of Auto Chess has launched on Epic Store and Mobile awhile ago – with all the Dota related elements stripped. The game wasn’t as successful outside of the Chinese market – with the global player base occupied by Dota Underlords, along with Riots’ own Teamfight Tactics.

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Underlord hasn't changed much comparing to the original Auto Chess version

While Underlord has an explosive start, with 1.5 million downloads on the first week, it has quickly fallen out of favor. Since launch, the concurrent player counts of the game has dropped by about over 90%, from 202,254 to 14,783. Despite the various improvements made by the valve team, such as daily challenge, battle pass, ranked matchmaking, it looks like Underlord is just a passing trend without any staying power. Based on Valve’s announcement about the full release, the patch would introduce a new Battlepass, Hero/Item rotation, and City Crawl contents. A smaller update with a new hero was also launched prior to that, along with the usual balance tweaks and changes.

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The previous battle pass of the game

Overall, Underlord’s future is not a bright one, as, since the original Dota Auto Chess, Blizzard and Riot have copied the design and made Hearthstone Battlegrounds and Teamfight Tactics. It is expected that the game would just be limping along, with a core devoted fanbase staying.

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