Valve Releases a Promo for The International - What does it mean?

Valve has released a teaser for The International Dota 2 Championships showcasing footage from various TIs held across the world over the many years. This Valve’s first real advertisement of Dota 2 in 5 years, after the cinematic trailer for Dota 2 reborn.

This video package dropped out of nowhere and leads us to think that there are much bigger factors in play, than just a promotion for TI-10. So what could this mean?

TI 10 Battlepass Coming Soon?

Earlier this month, there was a leak from one of the patches that Dota 2 received that hinted on the Dota 2 content which will be made available in the International 10’s Battlepass. It included all the usual elements like the achievements, coaching, fantasy league, predictions, the custom game, etc.

This leak included after this teaser, leads us to believe that Valve intends to release the Battle pass, sooner than ever before. Considering the fact that we need to crowdfund over $32 Million to surpass TI9’s prize pool, it doesn’t seem too absurd for the company to do this.

TI 10 Tickets to be Available Shortly

Valve has certainly been a little quicker with their announcements, than any year before. Perhaps the recent hiring of Kaci Aitchison has something to do with this phenomenon.

Regardless, Valve has already announced the dates and location of The International 10. The tournament is all set to take place at the Ericsson Globe, Stockholm, Sweden from Aug 18 - 23, 2020. This, of course, will let fans plan their vacation dates better and allow them to take time off work/school to watch the biggest tournament of the year.

Logically, the next move is to make the tickets for the International 10 available shortly. Perhaps Valve make an announcement on this, shortly.

Valve has Some Special Announcements Lined Up

Everyone remembers Riot Games making a Plethora of announcements, right before the 10th anniversary of their game. They announced League of Legends - Mobile Version, A Fighting Game, an FPS Game (Project A), an RPG, and an animated series. These were almost universally praised and got the whole gaming/esports community excited.

Although Valve will almost certainly not announce these many new projects, we expect something big from them (Not Artifact-esque) to mark the 10th year of The International and Dota 2.

We’ll get to know about it shortly. With the Action RPG Genre also making a comeback, perhaps it might be the right time for Valve to expand the Dota 2 universe. They already proved that they can design an incredible campaign with Siltbreaker. All they need to do now is to do it on a much larger scale.

Although the announcement video was not perfect (Used TI9’s colour scheme and didn’t reveal anything new), it is certainly nice to finally see Valve begin to market their game. 

While it might end up being a case of “too little too late”, this promo shows that Valve isn’t giving up on the game just yet. The developers are rumoured to be making a new Tutorial and are planning on expanding the ‘Learn tab’ to increase the flow of new players.