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With Dota Underlords available for testing, I've now taken a look at it (thanks Scaine!) and so far I've been quite impressed.

Valve have essentially rewritten the rules of "Valve Time", considering how quickly they've made it available and how promptly they've been responding to feedback. They've already adjusted it so you can switch between a Mobile and PC style for the user interface, fixed up the Linux version nicely (it runs beautifully!), removed the odd character outlines from the PC version and so on. Honestly, I'm genuinely surprised at how fast Valve are reacting with it.

Since this is apparently the next big thing, it's nice to see that Linux gamers can jump on in right away thanks to Valve. As a reminder, the original creator of the mod is making a stand-alone version for the Epic Games Store and the League of Legends developer Riot are also doing their own.

A basic overview

For those who have no idea: Dota Underlords is Valve's stand-alone version of the popular Dota 2 Auto Chess game mode. It's basically a strategy game with real-time battles that you don't have any direct control over. You go through rounds of picking Dota 2 heroes, combining three of them together to make them more powerful and then placing them onto the board. Once ready, it's time to hope for the best since they fight without your direct control.

There's also a player level system (which resets each game), allowing you to reach a maximum of level ten and each level allows you to add one more hero to the game board. You gain XP by winning matches or by spending Gold to advance a little.

It's a little odd, confusing and it can be overwhelming to begin with but also surprisingly addictive at the same time. One thing is for sure though, I currently suck as badly as I do in Dota 2.

The above intro is the real basic gist of it, but there's a lot more going on.

For example: Each hero belongs to an Alliance, with 23 different alliances that all give different bonuses. These bonuses activate, once you have enough heroes of the same Alliance in play on the board. Some Alliance bonuses might only need a single hero in play, while others activate when you have 2, 3, 4 and so on and there's multiple tiers to the buffs too.

As you progress, certain rounds have you fight a Neutral Wave rather than an opponent, giving the chance to earn a special item. Some of these items are Global modifiers, while others you can give directly to your heroes (one item per hero). From there, the gameplay basically loops over.

There's plenty more to it and plenty of it will change, since it's still in development but hopefully this gives you some sort of idea if it's something you will be into.

How get it

How to access Dota Underlords right now? You need to pick up the Dota 2 Battle Pass ($9.99), load up Dota 2 and make sure your Battle Pass is activated. Once done, Dota 2 will give you an option in-game to redeem Dota Underlords so it's added to your library.

Don't worry though, Valve said they will open it up to everyone else in around a week as they said in the announcement post once this initial stress-test is over.

The future

What does the future hold for it? For starters, they're working on a tutorial, which it's really going to need for the wider release. Right now, it can be pretty frustrating for newcomers so I hope Valve's tutorial is nicely streamlined.

For things that might be a little more interesting, well, SteamDB retweeted two interesting posts on Twitter. One of them, seems to indicate multiple maps and another a possible BattlePass system. I'm curious to see what they would offer with a BattlePass, I'm assuming some sort of cosmetic items for heroes.

There's already one thing I think it could benefit from, which is a slightly faster game mode. Dota 2 can be quite notorious for games lasting a long time and Dota Underlords seems to be the same. A faster mode might help both player adoption and player retention I think.

Given that it's only available to Dota 2 Battle Pass owners, the player numbers (SteamDB) seem to be around a pretty healthy level too. Early days though, that could easily change. However, Valve are going with something already popular and so I do expect it to fare much better than Artifact especially since they're gathering feedback early.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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17 comments
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Munk Jun 15, 2019
I'm happy to see Valve build their modern development chops on opportunistic titles like Artifact and Autochess. I'd much rather have them shake off the cobwebs with smaller-scale games than have one of their major IP's flop because they were stuck in the old ways of game development.
Micromegas Jun 15, 2019
It's again interesting to see how a new game genre was brought to life by modders.
Faalagorn Jun 15, 2019
It's actually called Reverse Valve Time :)
MisterPaytwick Jun 15, 2019
Quoting: GuestMark my words the time will come when valve made more DotA games than any of their other ips.

Can we agree on Half Life episodes being addons, that way we can already be in that future time.

I believe the only way Valve could break that guaranteed success status is by having an economic model as aggressive as Artifact's.

The digged out maps are likely going to be part of the cosmetics / seasonal battlepass àla Dota.


Last edited by MisterPaytwick on 15 June 2019 at 10:16 pm UTC
Naib Jun 15, 2019
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I just spotted I can add it \o/

if you ever want a dota2 game, i usually play 1-2 games a day
Linuxwarper Jun 15, 2019
Quoting: GuestMark my words the time will come when valve made more DotA games than any of their other ips.
They are developing VR games. One of them is a flagship game. They are working closely with Node, developers who are pioneers of VR.

Underlords is a smart business decision. And just because they released it, it doesn't mean they are just working only on it.
eldaking Jun 16, 2019
If they made a good single-player mode for it, I would even consider trying my hand on it. Ideally it would even be pausable, but that is probably too much to ask...
kuhpunkt Jun 16, 2019
Quoting: GuestMark my words the time will come when valve made more DotA games than any of their other ips.

It's Dota, not DotA.
kuhpunkt Jun 16, 2019
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: Linuxwarper
Quoting: GuestMark my words the time will come when valve made more DotA games than any of their other ips.
They are developing VR games. One of them is a flagship game. They are working closely with Node, developers who are pioneers of VR.

Underlords is a smart business decision. And just because they released it, it doesn't mean they are just working only on it.

First of I never said they only work on that DotA game alone. Secondly I personally couldn't care less about the VR Game's. Unless you can play them without VR.

Autocorrect again?
monnef Jun 16, 2019
I might give this game a try, if it has at least passable PvE mode(s) and not P2W MTX.

I, for one, am interested in their upcoming VR titles. I like how Valve is contributing to tech evolution. Even though Index is pricey, their hw and sw improvements will bubble down to cheap VRs. I also think they are not planning on locking their VR games to only their HW, that's in my opinion very positive for customers.

Just curious, why is it Dota and not DotA, doesn't it mean "Defense of the Ancients"?
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