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Dota Underlords goes into open beta, outlines what's next

The Auto Chess wars are underway, as Valve launches Dota Underlords and already has plans for what's on the horizon.

Ozzie Mejia

June 21, 2019 2:35 PM

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Auto Chess mods appear to be all the rage in gaming these days, particularly from the MOBA corner. Valve has been fascinated with the idea in recent months, recently unveiling its own take on the growing genre in the form of Dota Underlords. As one would imagine, this game is in its early stages of development and Valve appears to be taking notes on what to implement next.

Earlier this week, Dota Underlords officially launched its open beta on PC and mobile devices. What exactly is Dota Underlords? This game takes place in a different corner of the Dota universe called White Spire. Players recruit heroes, which can be upgraded and also form alliance with similar heroes. The idea is to outlast the other team, as the heroes automatically fight one another, with strategic matchups being the key to victory.

Now that there's a better idea of what Dota Underlords is, let's look at some of the ways Valve plans to improve on the open beta. On Friday, the Dota Underlords team took to Twitter to announce what's in the works. The ideas largely came from player feedback and they include:

• A full Scoreboard
• Social features, which includes scrolling through the map, hearing other player's fights, and full chat
• Full Hero voiceovers
• Balance changes for Dragon Alliance, Dragon Units and Items (Boots)
• Turbo Mode to help the game move faster, though Valve notes this is in the concept stage

This is just the beginning for Dota Underlords and for the Auto Chess phenomenon as a whole. Riot Games already has a competitor out there called Teamfight Tactics, which is currently consuming the Twitch world. And of course, original Auto Chess mod creators Drodo are currently working on their own non-Dota take on Auto Chess following their impasse with Valve.

If you've selected Dota Underlords as your Auto Chess game of choice, the open beta is available right now on Steam Early Access, the iOS App Store, and Google Play, with crossplay enabled.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?