New hero, new NEON Prime game, additional competitive region - what VALVE announces at The International 2022 finals
Yuriy SheremetIn Singapore, the main tournament of the competitive season in Dota 2 is on pause. The International 2022 playoffs will resume on October 29th.
The main dish is the battle of the strongest four teams for the title of world champions and a lot of bright dota. However, the main event of the year is not only about the clash of teams.
Such a significant event is an ideal platform for major announcements and announcements. Valve hasn't been too generous with promoting their game, but even with a rather passive approach to expanding and developing the game, the MOBA developers have definitely got some news in store for fans of the Battle of the Ancients.
We at EGW have compiled our TOP of upcoming Valve announcements. The rating is made from actually absolute event, to improbable.
New Dota 2 hero
Let's start with absolute banality. For the last two days of The International 2022, Valve has definitely prepared the show of a new Dota 2 hero.
Demonstration of the next game character is a good tradition of Gabe Newell's company. The tradition dates back to 2017, when Valve showed Dark Willow and Pangolier.
Since 2017, Dota 2 developers have been delighting fans of the game with an exclusive cinematic trailer of the hero with a premiere on the main arena of the year. There are no prerequisites to abandon the traditional practice, and therefore at this The International we will definitely get 124 playable heroes, there is no doubt about it. Another question is who will become this character.
There are several theories here and all of them, according to the classics, are unconfirmed, at least a few of them are worthy of attention. So, for example, the Dota 2 community has been waiting for a long time for the appearance of an analogue of HoN's Puppet Master in the game: dataminers are talking about the hero's debut on the battlefield of the Battle of the Ancients. You can also expect a character closely related to Vengeful Spirit, which was also hinted at in the game files.
There are several options, but which one Valve will choose is still a mystery. Perhaps someone like Marci is waiting for us at all?
DOTA Season Announcement: Dragon's Blood
The second extremely likely show at the final stage of the playoffs of The International 2022 is the announcement of the new season of DOTA: Blood of the Dragon. By the way, this can be beaten with the introduction of a new character.
At The International 10, Valve has already resorted to this approach: Marci, one of the central characters of the animated series in the Dota 2 universe, was shown there.
This time, the presentation of the new season of the series can be tied up with the announcement of a new character from DOTA: Dragon's Blood. The situation is absolutely win-win, where one derivative correlates with the second, adding significance to each other.
However, the new part of the series will certainly appear without the thematic representation of the character from the anime. The creators of the original show left the fattest cliffhanger in the third season, and therefore there will definitely be a continuation, and where else if not at The International to remind you of the existence of a Dota product, outside of Dota itself?
NEON PRIME is a new game from Valve
Another potential announcement from Valve at the final stage of The International 22 is a fresh IP from Valve. And this is not even fantasy, we have specific data on this matter.
Information has surfaced on the network that Valve is developing a new project with reference to the Dota 2 universe. The code name of the game is NEON Prime.
A sci-fi game in the Dota 2 setting may be hiding under a vague name. Most likely, this will not be an FPS shooter, and IceFrog will be involved in the development of the project.
The events of the game will unfold in one of the parallel realities that have been featured in the world of Dota 2 for a long time. It sounds quite hype, given Valve's approach to creating games.
The main stage of The International 2022 is the perfect place to showcase the new IP. Valve has already practiced this by announcing Artifact as part of The International 2017.
We remember the history of the ill-fated CCG from Valve. Greedy monetization ruined one of the most difficult and potentially deep collectible card games, and we hope that in the case of NEON Prime, Valve will learn from their mistakes.
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A new competitive region or the abolition of the old one
The burning or eternal problem of Dota outside of gameplay is Valve's tournament ecosystem. Globally, there is nothing wrong with her and she passed the crash test, for example, in the League of Legends, but she does not work very well in Dota. This opinion is shared by many: from spectators to professional cybersportsmen.
The very approach to protracted multi-week DPC leagues kills interest in watching competitive DotA, and clubs are simply uncomfortable keeping players on contracts for several months in the dark - now a failure in the home league means a drawdown in media coverage for many weeks.
The problem of the development of the young scene immediately emerges: players outside the DPC system are forced to play in local tournaments without prospects. One of the ways to solve the situation is to add a new competitive region.
As an option - the Middle East region, which is in many disciplines. An argument in favor of such a decision can serve as a boom in e -sports in the Middle East, where, for example, they want to invest $ 38 billion in the industry.
Another possible announcement on the topic is the abolition of an already existing region. Here you can think of several options.
For example, Valve could divide the competitive world into two hemispheres: Western (North America, South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe) and Eastern (China, Southeast Asia). For a deeper segmentation, you can combine Europe into one region, as Riot does.
Again, there are many options, but the chances of such monumental changes from Valve are very small. However, not as much as with the “restart” of Dota 2.
Dota 2 “restart” announcement
When we talk about adding a new region or restructuring the current ones as monumental things, then this point is completely colossal. Painfully phantasmagorically it looks, although it is necessary.
The fact that Dota 2 is waiting for global changes was said before the start of The International 2022. Like, something will happen that you won’t believe. Sunsfan threw such loud phrases, and his reputation and connections are definitely higher than most insiders.
The first thing that comes to mind is the outsourcing of Dota 2. Then the game will receive stable updates, be filled with content and acquire new users.
The situation with the Battle Pass at The International 2022 may push Valve to take such a step. This season, the “proven” way for years to gather excitement around the world’s largest esports tournament has failed. Valve not only failed to break the record for prize money for the last The International, everything is much worse. The growth rate of the price pool in 2022 is very close to the indicators of 2017, which hints at Valve's not quite the right direction.
We immediately recall the classic unwillingness of Valve to directly communicate with the audience of the game. In order to reach “upstairs”, you have to create threads on reddit and blow about the problem into all possible horns, and it’s not a fact that they will pay attention to you.
You can understand Valve. They have in mind the development of Steam and its derivatives: SteamDeck, VR technologies and other high-tech products. However, for fans of DotA, this is unlikely to come off as an excuse.
Naturally, the chance of such a meager, I would say the event is impossible. It is more likely to believe in some kind of statement like: “We will continue the development of Dota 2, we will steadily release patches, new heroes.” We have already heard such a song, but, as we see, some things do not change.
Collector's Cache Launch Autographed by TI 22 Lighting Talents
Another banal thing for The International is the sale of exclusive chests autographed by The International 2022 lighting talent. This will not happen this year, although, again, the thing is eerily banal. Exactly, as well as the reason for the cancellation of this practice at the current event.
This year, Valve decided to introduce commentator phrase capsules to Battle Pass. In fact, this is an analogue of chests, only instead of pixels there are audio files.
Part of the money spent on the purchase of capsules will go to talents. Simple arithmetic, which will deprive us of additional content in the game that has dried up on it.
However, it is not necessary for Valve to add chests with autographs. You can limit yourself to some line of unique items. In general, there is room for imagination.
On this topic of our imaginary announcements ended. We are waiting for October 29 to see which of the forecasts will turn out to be true.
Yuriy Sheremet – Expert in mobile gaming and esports among shooters and MOBA games.
At EGamersWorld, Yuriy, as in 2020 when he joined the portal, works with content, albeit with adjustments to his area of responsibility.