No Dota 2 Battle Pass this year as Valve shifts focus
Every year, we wait patiently for the Dota 2 Battle Pass for the annual The International, throwing our wallets at Valve without measure or restraint. It has become somewhat of a tradition, but Valve is changing things up this year. To be very clear, this is a PSA: Valve will not release a Dota 2 Battle Pass this year.
No Dota 2 Battle Pass in 2023
This week, Valve revealed the news of no Battle Pass in a lengthy blog post entitled “Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future.” The developer first looked at the past, and in the “present” section, they noted that they did an experiment earlier this year, where they “took the resources that would normally produce Battle Pass content and instead put them towards more speculative updates, including features and content that couldn’t fit into a Battle Pass.”
The experiment paid off with the New Frontiers and patch 7.33! Valve noted that this couldn’t be possible if they focused all their efforts on Battle Pass content. The developer also said that:
“Most Dota players never buy a Battle Pass and never get any rewards from it. Every Dota player has gotten to explore the new map, play with the new items, and accidentally die to a Tormentor; every Dota player benefits from UI improvements and new client features. Community response to New Frontiers has helped us build confidence that working less on cosmetic content for the Battle Pass and more on a variety of exciting updates is the right long-term path for Dota as both a game and a community.”
So what’s the point? Well, Valve will continue on the road started with New Frontiers, instead of working on new Battle Pass cosmetics.
Valve explains:
“We recognize this affects The International. We’re still huge fans of TI and we’re excited for this year’s event — both as organizers and as attendees ourselves — and work is well underway on a TI-themed update to ship in September. The update will still contribute directly to the prize pool, with a focus on the event, the players, and the games, but new cosmetic items won’t play a notable part. This is a significant change from the last few years, so to make it clear that we’re shifting focus towards the event and away from the giant reward line of cosmetics, we’re intentionally not calling this update a Battle Pass.”
So yes, the prize pool will still grow in some way, but they won’t be calling the update a “Battle Pass.” It is very unclear how everything will work at this point, but we shouldn’t expect those huge amounts of cosmetics.
We will update our readers once we learn more!
Header image via Valve.
