A few weeks ago, Valve's has expressed its love for the Dota 2's Auto Chess mod. At the same time, it has announced that their standalone version of Auto Chess was under development.
However, it hasn't revealed the exact release date of the game yet and left us with the "soon" announcement. It turns out, "soon" is today, as they've officially revealed Dota Underlords.
What's new in Dota Underlords?
Previously in January, Drodo Studio has introduced a custom mod for Dota 2 called Auto Chess, which brings players into a chess board, competing with other 7 players using the champions and features from Dota 2.
The mod quickly gained a lot of population, as it accounts for eight million players by the end of this May. It also leveled players' recognition on "autobattler" genre and inspired a lot of famous games, such as League of Legends.
And Valve Corporation, the creators of Dota 2, does not just stand there looking. It has introduced its own standalone version of the game, namely Dota Underlords.
Basically, the game has the same elements as Auto Chess, as it still features an eight-players battle on the chess-like table. But this time, it has lore. According to Valve, the players have to fight against one another for " the dominance of the city, White Spire".
Apart from that, there is another slight change in Dota Underlords as well. Specifically, Underlords will allow players to choose items prior to the creep (NPC) rounds from a pool. This change is somewhat necessary, and it will make strategic elements of the game more significant, as it reduces the luckiness from random drops from NPC enemies.
Battle Pass owners can test it right now, others have to wait for Open Beta
If you've got your Dota 2 Battle Pass, you can try the game right this moment. Valve Corporation was previously testing the game under Friends and Family Beta State, and now, it is bringing the game to Battle Pass owner. If you're among them, then you can find the invite to test Dota Underlords on Dota 2 dashboard on Steam.
The game in this era will allow players to:
- Play online against seven other players.
- Practice offline against our lineup of advanced bots (from easy to hardcore difficulty).
- Party up and play together against bots or other players.
After a week of testing, the game will be transfer to the Beta state, where every player can freely join and try the game.
At the Beta State, the developers will bring new features, including:
- Ranked matchmaking.
- Cross-play across all devices.
- Rank and progression shared across all devices.
The game's PC releasing portal will be Steam, and it will also support Android and iOS as well!
Hopefully, everything will be "the second time the charm" for Valve, and the Artifact incident will not repeat again!