Valve? Making games?!
Since Dota 2’s inception, Valve has held a massive event, named The International, to highlight the best players of the game in a gigantic battle for supremacy. Players form teams and duke it out for a chance to win an insane amount of money (the first pot was $1.6 million). Starting in 2013, Valve let fans contribute to the prize pool by offering a digital compendium for sale through Steam. Along with offering some cosmetic items for players, sales of the compendium would contribute to the prize pool for that year’s tournament. 2016 had a pool of over $20 million, for instance!
While that amount may be crazy, it looks like Valve isn’t content with just offering a simple compendium this year. In promoting The International 2017, Valve has announced that all purchases of the $10 2017 compendium will receive a brand new co-op campaign for Dota 2. Titled Siltbreaker, the campaign will task parties of three to battle through two acts with varying landscapes and monsters. The first act will be available in the coming weeks with act II launching in July.
One of my biggest problems with MOBAs is the steep learning curve for competitive play. Randomly jumping into a match is a great way to get berated for being an idiot, but having a campaign focused challenge sounds a lot more pleasant to me. I’m not sure if I’ll blindly buy it, but I feel more inclined to actually give Dota 2 a shot, now.
As for the other bonuses that come with this year’s compendium, the list is pretty massive. I really and truly don’t know much about what these things are, so I’ll link you to this wiki that has everything listed out.
Dota 2 gets a co-op campaign this month [Eurogamer]
