Direct combat is handled by the AI and thus is entirely out of the hands of players. The only input players can have is to reposition and modify their team. Despite being seemingly abandoned, the gameplay remains fresh through the inherent unpredictability of players and the variance in skill.Īuto Chess games, however, don’t have that same kind of direct interaction. In TF2, for example, the gameplay remains fresh across hundreds of hours through the interactions between players. However, Dota Underlords doesn’t fit this formula, and Valve hasn’t seemed to realize it. Their multiplayer games in particular have great staying power due to their high skill ceilings and dynamic gameplay. This radio silence is typically offset by the high quality of their releases, which many see as justifying the wait.

They are notorious for long periods of silence and abandoning beloved games (looking at TF2). The main factor, unsurprisingly to some, is Valve. What happened? There is no one specific answer, but there are a few major factors that contributed to it. As of this writing, the game had a 24-hour peak of only 3,139 players, a far cry from its competitor. While it started off with a bang, peaking early at 202,254 players, it has fallen off hard. The latter game occupies the twelfth highest spot of all the categories on Twitch, as of this time.īut what of Dota Underlords? Valve’s official spin on the genre, with the very characters that started it all, seemed primed for success. While the standalone Auto Chess has waned in popularity without the support of Valve, Teamfight Tactics has flourished. Their game was simply titled Auto Chess and implemented microtransactions to make a profit. The developers of the original mod, Drodo Studio, also tried to cash in on their own trend. The most notable of these were of course Riot Games with Teamfight Tactics and Valve themselves with Dota Underlords. Many other developers sought to emulate the success of Auto Chess. Of course, with that success, it was inevitable that others would take notice. But now while it exists it has mostly been forgotten. By May, it had over 8 million players, making it a true breakout success. Also like Dota, it drew a great deal of attention and went on to become a standalone game.

Like Dota itself, it was a mod, a product of Valve’s extensive modding support through the Steam Workshop. In January 2019 the first Auto Chess game made an appearance, suitably titled Dota Auto Chess. Once upon a time, at the height of Dota Underlords, the Auto Chess subgenre was huge.

Dota underlords