We’ve known for a while that Auto Chess is a big thing Valve wanted to work with, but the modders behind the original Dota 2 Custom Game had different ideas. Nonetheless, they’ve been given the blessing to produce an official Auto Chess game under the Dota brand. Today, Valve has announced it to be Underlords.
Dota Team’s blog describes it as the following:
Dota Underlords is a new stand-alone game that pits you against seven opponents in a battle of wits that will have you building, combining, and leveling-up a crew in a battle of dominance for the city of White Spire. In this game, victory is determined not by twitch reflexes, but by superior tactics.
Avid Dota fans can pick up the game right now: A stress test is being conducted this week and open beta is expected to open up for free next week. To get in you’ll need a Dota 2 Battle Pass to get instructions on adding it to your library from the Dota 2 dashboard. To clarify, Underlords is completely standalone for Windows, Mac and Linux.
Open beta will expand the game to Android and iOS, offer it free to everyone and expand features. This platform addition will have complete cross-play across all versions, carrying over progression and ranking across platforms. Ranked matchmaking itself opens up with the open beta.
It’s worth noting the battle for auto-battlers is heating up: The original Auto Chess team actually has a fairly successful venture already on Android and iOS, and is on PC via Epic Games Store. Steam and Dota 2 are an immense force however, so we’ll see how they stack up against each other in the long term.
Riot Games is adding an Auto Chess mode to the insanely popular League of Legends. Yet another strategy custom game is taking over the world.
