Valve is working on Dota Underlords as official version of Dota Auto Chess mod

Valve previously hinted that it is working on its own version of the popular Dota 2 mod Auto Chess. The company is now announcing that it is Dota Underlords. Some already have access to an early version of the game and an open beta will follow in a week.

Valve presents Dota Underlords as a new standalone game in which the player has to compete against seven opponents, building your own team and making choices that ultimately make the difference. Dota 2 Battle Pass owners can already access an early version of Dota Underlords. Valve says that doing so will be a kind of stress test that will last about a week.

Then comes the open beta for PC, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS; that beta will probably come out in about a week. In the beta version, players can compete independently or collectively via the internet against seven other players, although practicing against bots is also an option. It is still unclear when Dota Underlords will officially be released. According to Valve, the development is still in a fairly early phase, which probably means that the necessary bugs will still be present during the open beta.

Dota Underlords can be considered as the official version of the existing Auto Chess mod for Dota 2. This mod is very popular; Auto Chess currently has nearly nine million subscribers in the Steam Workshop. The gameplay of the mod and Dota Underlords is quite different from that of Dota 2 and the moba genre; players play on a chessboard on which all kinds of heroes from Dota 2 take the place of the chess pieces. It’s mainly about tactics and strategy, with automated battles between heroes that the players from a joint group have purchased. By combining heroes, making combos and achieving a certain mutual synergy between the heroes, players must try to get the upper hand.

The new game from Valve will get the necessary competition. Drodo Studio, creator of the Dota Auto Chess mod, is launching its own standalone version for PC that will be available exclusively on Epic Games’ online store later this year. Valve previously approached Drodo to see if the team wanted to work with Valve directly, but the parties couldn’t agree, meaning both are now making their own version. Valve indicated that they fully support each other in this. In addition, Dota Underlords will face competition from Riot Games, creator of the major Dota 2 competitor League of Legends. This company recently announced that an Auto Chess-inspired game mode called Teamfight Tactics will be added to League of Legends later this month.