Dota Underlords rises out of early access today

Valve today launched Dota Underlords in full after eight months in early access. You know, Valve's version of the mega-popular Dota Auto Chess mod - the same autobattler mod which inspired Riot's Teamfight Tactics. You know, the team-building battle genre which has little do with which chess. That one. Today's launch has brought a new campaign-ish mode with challenges and puzzles, the start of a new season, a new battle pass, a new look for the board, and more. See the launcher trailer below.

Let's see what we've got... City Crawl is a campaign where battles against AI, puzzle battles, and normal matches conquers city tiles which eventually lead to cosmetic bits. Season One has started. Ace Effects have been removed. New Alliances are in: Summoner; Vigilant; and Void. New items are in too. Balance has been tweaked. You can now decorate your board with props to make it look nice. New boards are now in to unlock, and people who played enough in the beta can get some old ones too. The battle pass brings plenty of props and other cosmetic bits to unlock.

Hit the launch patch notes and this blog post for more on everything changing now Dota Underlords is out-out.

As our Matt noted, autobattlers have been struggling to keep players. Let's see what the full launch does for Dunderlords.

Dota Underlords is free-to-play on Steam. The update download was 1.2GB for me.

How breathtakingly busy Valve seem with launches right now, by their standards. Here's this today and now Half-Life: Alyx is less than one month away, due March 23rd.