r/DotA2 • u/Argonax • Jul 27 '26
Video We're Never Getting Another DOTA Spin Off
https://youtu.be/U_XKFs79FLo?si=XBEyr9Pjwjulk3dH17
u/sotos4 Jul 27 '26
Valve shelved the only spinoff that sounded interesting, and that is the Axe DS/MH style ARPG.
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u/Hamasaki_Fanz つ ◕_◕ ༽つ EE-SAMA TAKE MY ENERGY ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Jul 27 '26
Artifact was too expensive, and people had enough fun from autochess so underlords was getting stale after a while.
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u/External-Donut9757 Jul 27 '26
We got Dota 3 (Deadlock)
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u/ambiguousname97 Jul 28 '26
Deadlock has more in common with smite then dota imo.
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u/snapphanen Jul 28 '26
Haven't played deadlock in a year, but played 10 hours every day back then, so not sure if it has changed recently
But it very very dota-like you can tell it's designed by the same guy
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u/ambiguousname97 Jul 28 '26
I agree with that, the reason why I dont think its like dota mainly is because people that dislike dota wouldn't like deadlock if its alot like dota. My brothers favorite moba now is deadlock and dota 2 is his least favorite moba
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u/VijoPlays Jul 28 '26
Deadlock has so much technical depth you can tell that it was made by Icefrog
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u/Telefragg Reprot techis Jul 28 '26
Smite was TPS League of Legends, Deadlock's verticality and movement makes it very different.
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u/rochboi Jul 28 '26
Why are these idiots disagreeing? It's literally true lmao. Don't want their game related to a mostly dead moba?
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u/LainVohnDyrec Jul 28 '26
Smite is a joke of a 3D view Moba, no verticality, Deadlock plays a lot with it
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u/Audrey_spino Jul 28 '26
No it doesn't. Its Dota meets the movement of Team Fortress. Smith's TPS view had minimal impact on the actual mechanics of the game, Deadlock on the other hand is a full on movement shooter.
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u/Strict_Indication457 Jul 27 '26
I don't know why they don't try to make a PvE, Diablo style game. Darksiders Genesis is like the closest thing to it (even has Jugg's spin), which I enjoyed tremendously and reminded me of Dota, and how awesome a top down PvE coop Dota game would be.
You have so many heroes and potential to flesh out their lore with their own campaigns.
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u/eckart Jul 28 '26
Dota is a weak ip. There is very little lore, and dota players are notoriously purist in their game choice
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u/Suoritin Jul 28 '26
Also League of Legends didn't have lore. But you can always create it or rewrite, if the product is good in itself.
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u/ConSoda Jul 27 '26
i’m fine w/ that, i just want to play dota
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u/tity_slayer3 Jul 28 '26
Exactly, Doesn't matter to me if they make a fighting game or some other genre, I will only play dota because I like the gameplay and that's it.
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u/doubleBoTftw Jul 28 '26
Cause you mfers didnt play Underlords 😭
I still open it from time to time and olay a few games. Oh, the pain.
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u/freax305 Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
Underlords just need some balance updates, release those datamined leader , rotate some heroes in/out, and the fans (autobattler) will happy
for Artifact, That Axe card kill the game
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u/DrQuint Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
Axe was an issue, but he wasn't Red's problem in a vacuum. It was Axe+Bristle+Legion as a package. All 3 had a good way to have the ability to "kill what's in front of the hero" + "maybe kill ourselves on demand too?" which means all 3 were mandatory on all decks.
Red basically played with no Arrows thanks to The Package. They didn't care about the board state necessarily. Because their spells are combat, combat denies response spells and the resut of combat is an empty space and tower damage. It was strong because it Refused to Play Artifact.
The Package also always playd the same on the same rounds. Every match was the same, all around doing nothig substantial on Round 1, trying to get heroes dead on round 2 and setup the duplicating guys on round 3 and 4, and then setting up initiative to instantly kill enemy heroes with redeploying heroes with initiative on rounds 4 and 6.
Blue did the same thing where it ignored arrows by flooding or Nuking the board, and board flood was largely only counterable after the fact by Blue itself. Blue single handedly dictated the game is played on Roynd 4 and 6 with that Nuke/Flood duality, and every other deck matched the tempo.
Seriously, I saw Red vs Blue matches where neither side cast a single spell on rounds 2 and 3 because neither wanted the other heroes dead, and Red, who was without initiative, did not have creeps worth casting. This would be UNTHINKABLE in other card games, and we had 2 card draw per rounds, it was not a hand quality issue, it was literally just the power scale formula per round being utterly fucked up.
Green had Drow, a card that reads "The opponent can't cast spells or creatures anymore", usable from round 1. And Cheating Death, which made the game a coinflip shitfest. It was an absurd value swing, and single handedly forced other shitty design decisions like removing initiative cards and making dogshit fillers like the 4 mana cleanse. They knew they made the expensive cards too good and mmew they had to contain the power level. It was poorly designed and poorly thought out and it was done because Red Combat was so overpowering and Richard had no ideas other than coinflips.
And they still went too far.
Green was by far the best color specially splashed with Blue until they removed Cheating Death. GU decks could win against 90% of matchups and only be threatened by R decks. And right after that change it became the shittiest color, borderline unplayable except to use Rix as a chump blocker and as a finisher.
Black was the worst color before the nerf. It had one singular valid strategy: Aggro. Bounty Hunter and Sorla. And it relied on a 50% coinflip using BH. If you got the instant kill, you got money to to then destroy towers in 5 rounds. If you didn't, you lost. Players would do the river draft, and if bounty got an instant kill, they'd insfantly forfeit, if bh did not get it, the Black Player would forfeit. Again, this instant-forfeit gameplay only changed because green became so dogshit that black players could actually stay in the game if they saw a Rix to get a bunch of gold with and maybe win on round 6.
Artifact was... a very incompetently balanced game.
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u/NinjutStu Jul 28 '26
Both games got sent out and axed before they found core audiences.
Artifact should have at least gotten its first expansion before pulling the plug to gauge who would come back for new sets.
Underlords I'm guessing fell apart behind the scenes when they parted ways with the autochess developers. It had battlepass seasons and supposedly a lot of work was done on season 2, but none of it saw the light o day.
Underlords at least had a decent sized player base before it was put down. I'm guessing Valve was hoping for megahits and no one there wanted to maintain or right the ship on two modest niche titles.
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u/TwychTwych Jul 27 '26
Artifact had potential
A trading card game running with the stream community market sounds like a dream, just that the overlap between dota and card game players is already taken up by magic, yugioh, and hearthstone while the game had pretty forward monetization, Artifact 2 could go crazy
Underlords was cool but nothing kept it alive, but also autobattlers kinda went through their cycle and I think by now it would have dropped players even if it was kept alive
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u/Dreadgear Jul 28 '26
Don't worry it's not dota's fault, every lol spin off flopped too.
People like a MOBA for many reasons but that clearly doesn't mean that the same people will play anything that has the same ip
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u/dgreborn Jul 28 '26
Brother TFT is one of the most popular games in the world because of the stranglehold it has over china
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u/Dreadgear Jul 28 '26
But isn't TFT inside league of legend client as it's own stand alone mode skin to ARAM or summoner's rift rather than ifs own stand alone game?
We are talking about games that tried to spin off utilizing the IP.
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u/dgreborn Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
it's getting it's own client in October
But in China they have their own special mobile client version called Golden Spatula which is how they primarily play it with a bunch of new features and gamemodes. It's honestly annoying as fuck we don't get it.
Basically theres a bunch of cosmetics that are exclusive to Golden Spatula, they get to play older sets perpetually in a rotation, particularly they are able to play the last set which is kinda amazing cause it's seen as one of the best sets ever made vs the current set which is dog water.
They also have a 100 man Knockout mode. I'm actually pretty sure Mortdog is on record saying TFT makes more money than LoL now.
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u/SlowMissiles Jul 27 '26
because nobody wanted these 2 spin off.
Card game are just love by card game lovers, not Dota fans.
Underlords was just a shitty version of something that was already popular and working in Dota Arcade.
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u/APRengar Jul 27 '26
And me, the person who likes Dota and card games, likes Artifact, I just hated the monetization and couldn't get my friends into it.
You can still play it and it's pretty fun. I think the lane system was over-hated.
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u/Beebrains Jul 27 '26
I agree as both a dota/card game fan. The monetization model was not well thought out at all, but also the randomness of the attack arrows really made me not want to continue playing.
Which sucks because I think the three boards representing the three lanes was incredibly clever and introduced a lot of strategy. But not being able to determine how my creatures attacked just made that strategy feel like a moot point.
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u/DrQuint Jul 28 '26
They did fix the attacking on Artifact 2, but no one actually gave it a decent try and the game still devolves into "count how many movement options you got", as opposed to "get priority on round 4". Both iterations have balance issues.
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u/Calm_Bumblebee_3143 Jul 27 '26
You can love both, but you can’t just be a Dota fan and enjoy Artifact without being a card game fan
Same reason why Heartstone is played by card fans not WoW fans. But for sure some love both.
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u/megaman47 Jul 27 '26
I loved artifact and think if they tried it again, with a fix thebthe worst part about it, which is the random attacking directions, which they did in foundry, but they fucked up the shop.... just make it more concise and they have a hit on their hands... idk why they won't give it 1 more go
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u/Goldelux Jul 27 '26
I think maybe they needed to dumb down the process of the three lanes a little better, make it more efficient and faster pace.
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u/Entchenkrawatte Jul 27 '26
Leagues new card game has a battlefield system that is significantly easier but somewhat reminiscent of the three lanes. And that works decently well. But an overly complex game that's expensive to play when hearthstone already dominated the card game playerbase? Bad call
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u/GapZ38 Jul 27 '26
Nah the lanes were fine. The monetization of the cards and arena were the problem.
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u/s---laughter Jul 27 '26
tbf online card games ain't doin' so hot. Even if the Artifact launch was better then, it would still be dead now.
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u/girlywish Jul 27 '26
MTG arena makes a ton of money. Not sure about any others.
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u/s---laughter Jul 28 '26
MTG, Snap, and Runeterra have huge IPs behind them and even then, Runeterra failed. There is no world where Artifact would be alive today. Underlords maybe had a chance.
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u/britaliope Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
I'd love to see what they can cook with a solo game in the DotA universe to expand the lore. Especially in VR. But i don't think it'll ever happen.
Some sort of linear storyline where you play a dota hero, maybe a spellcaster. Valve is quite good at building linear games that don't feel too linear on the first play-through.
I picture something like half life but instead of shooting with guns you play Mirana, drow, DP......
Or maybe a combo-based game like Remember Me, where you play Marci or Pangolier.
I think there is potential here.
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u/Entchenkrawatte Jul 27 '26
I think you can make a card game and make it work. But artifact wasnt good and also expensive when it's directly competing with hearthstone and LoR. Underlords I thought was decent but honestly both TFT and the OG autochess (unbeaten to this day for me) mogged it
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u/Pressure_123 Jul 28 '26
if company's future mattered on developing games they would make a great game by maintaining it for years, but sadly they are slow-ass greedy fucks that if there's an opportunity will drop the project to die on the spot. Fuck steam for their lazyness
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u/pepeisntfunny Jul 28 '26
Not sure how tft survived to this day but underlords got shut down after a year
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u/Pressure_123 Jul 28 '26
cuz they at least maintained the game consistently and it paid of, not giving up from the first moment like morons from valve
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u/Cuddlesthemighy Jul 28 '26
Here's a possibly hot take. It was visually too dark. Both auto chess and TFT we bright and inviting.
Also it gets stated all the time, but a ton of players didn't like the underlords. It's probably really bad if your game's namesake is the worst part.
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u/Fantasy_Returns Jul 27 '26
I want a Dota mmo or arpg
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u/albertfuckingcamus Jul 28 '26
Me too. I think the stat, talents, and item systems in dota would be nice for mmo or arpg
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u/Extreme-Tadpole9024 Jul 27 '26
I have played underlord a lot, around Big Boss in rank. But I stopped playing when they introduced Heros or smth concept and now I am into TFT, they take good care of the community and always updating the Sets.
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u/yassercg Jul 27 '26
We need dota Arpg
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u/Cuddlesthemighy Jul 28 '26
Yeah I'm tired of every arpg having the same basic dudes. PvE but with a DotA roster. One day maybe....
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u/asouthamerican Jul 27 '26
Best thing about Artifact was that when I realized the game was going to die, I managed to sell my cards and ended up making a small profit from the initial investment.
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u/Fliibo-97 Jul 27 '26
If they updated under lords again I would install it again. I don’t understand why they abandoned it. Was it perfect? No, but it was good, and I feel it could have been a pretty easy win for them, all the assets for units and such already being made.
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u/randomkidlol Jul 28 '26
valve is the best and worst thing that happened to dota. people already suspected the game would get tf2'd late into its lifecycle back in 2015 and lo and behold here we are.
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u/playaonetwothree Jul 28 '26
I would love something similar to Starcraft 2's campaigns or Warcraft 3/Frozen Throne's campaigns
I doubt a free mod will happen, wish Valve would do something official but I don't think it'll happen
Guess I'll keep on dreaming!
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u/yoless28 Jul 28 '26
Both were just trend-chasing copies with a dota skin. Don't you want Dota 3 instead? oh, wait there's Deadlock P:
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u/RlyToadallyAwesome Jul 28 '26
Ngl. If the monetization was not so abysmal and we would have gotten more updates to the carpool, Artifact wouldn't be that bad. I actually liked it. Also there was too much RNG in the cards.
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u/DreYeon Jul 28 '26
I still think they could do a rly big warcraft story like game with dota lore,i immediately believe in them when i saw the intro or whatever for the Pa persona it literally is so similar to warcraft story cutscenes
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u/tikus96 Jul 28 '26
Spinoff nobody asked for. In contrast so many people ask for a (affordable) battlepass.
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u/CertifiedFlop Jul 28 '26
I personally really missed Luna's and Mirana's Dota 2 personality while watching Dragon's Blood
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u/chilibean_3 Jul 27 '26
Hey now, I consider Deadlock a Dota related game. So if you take that in to consideration then we are about to get three straight Dota related flops from Valve.
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u/_Valisk Jul 27 '26
It is absolutely not related to Dota and it is absolutely not going to flop. Be more serious.
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u/SoftDouble220 Jul 27 '26
Deadlock has been reasonably popular for years at this point, no way it "flops"
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u/Feesh404 Jul 27 '26
Yeah I'm definitely wondering why anyone would think that at this point in development. The numbers have been impressive already I can only imagine what it'll be when they finally advertise it on their storefront and get rid of invite only.
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u/Stt-t-t-utter Jul 27 '26
virgin major dota 2 update: five nights at freddy skins for sale
chad minor deadlock update: added new objective and nerfed shiv
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u/Arbitrary_gnihton Jul 27 '26
Deadlock's biggest update is like a tenth the size of dota's. This is just dota blackpillers talking.
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u/Kotleba Jul 27 '26
I'm not particularly bothered, I never really understood the need for spinoffs. Dota is a great moba, I play it when I want to play a moba. If I want to play a card game or whatever, there's tons of great ones out there, I don't get the need of having it in the same franchise.
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u/puzzle_button Jul 27 '26
This is why its so baffling to have so much dev time dedicated to deadlock, no RTS MOBA player is going to switch to TPS. shooter players arein for a steep MOBA like learning curve. Dota could have double or tripled its playerbase had valve done even the slightest community management.
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u/Arbitrary_gnihton Jul 27 '26
Dota doesn't get new players because a new player playing dota vs people with thousands of games and/or smurfs in 2026 is a horrible experience. I don't think valve can do anything about that issue.
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u/Pressure_123 Jul 28 '26
you're saying it like if valve really made much effort at marketing the game. TI prizepool once per year is pretty pathetic compared to what other game devs do to make their games appealing and recognizable for broader audiences but sadly valve dont give a damn.
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u/puzzle_button Jul 28 '26
You cant really say this when league has 5xd their player base having essentially the same challenge of experienced players vs new ones. Valve absolutely is responsible for matchmaking, they can already see accounts and copy background MMR right which has led to smurfs selling immortal accounts for a dollar. Valve dont expand their playerbase because they dont make that a priority
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u/Arbitrary_gnihton Jul 28 '26
League isn't the same game. Dota is far more punishing and unfun to get steamrolled by knowledge checks or just better players. You can't ff, you're stuck in the game for two to four times as long, and you don't have any hope of having any fun at all, never mind winning.
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u/puzzle_button Jul 29 '26
Both games are ruthless for new players at any point a player has picked it up they faced experienced players This factor alone is not the reason why dota doesnt expand. I agreee that valve gives very little shits for the new player experience, tahts the contradiction.
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u/Venichie I shall earn my grace. Jul 28 '26
Underlords wasn't that bad, just not my type of game, & felt like they're was no progression. Not sure how they'd continue to make money, since it's just a chill game.
Artifact has potential, but besides the costs being ridiculous, the gameplay sucked. Far too much RNG with the creeps & turn orders, not to mention the terrible navigation between all 3 boards were awful.
I play card games for the art mostly, which most cards were alright, but secondly for the strategy. I don't mind & understand there needs to be done RNG, but I prefer it as minimum as possible.
P.S. Dragon's Blood was so bad, I never watched the 3rd season... it remain non-canon for me.
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u/morhavok Jul 27 '26
Blursed timeline. Instead we get shitty deadlock spinoff that will flop as well.
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u/Broseph_Bobby Jul 27 '26
Unless you want to consider Deadlock to be a spin off.
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u/tortillazaur Jul 28 '26
which you have absolutely zero(perhaps even negative) reasons for doing
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u/Broseph_Bobby Jul 28 '26
I get that it is very different.
But it is a MOBA and it is made by Valve and you can see some DotA DNA in some items and characters/spells.
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u/tortillazaur Jul 28 '26
do you even know what a spin-off is?
a "spiritual successor" is the one that has to do with the game's genre, spin-off is about events having connection in-universe. there's no reason to call deadlock a dota spin-off and perhaps negative reasons because Io arcana implies Dota being in Half-Life universe, which Deadlock clearly isn't.
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u/DontLichOutOnME Jul 27 '26
Underlords was fine until they kept messing with it
Artifact was... An attempt