It looks like DOTA 2 developers are ready to follow the lead from their biggest rivals, League of Legends.
And no, we don’t mean there’s a battle royale game mode coming out.
Instead, it appears that the DOTA 2 team will be now looking to keep pushing out updates and patches every couple of weeks rather than a few times a year.
Posting on Twitter, lead developer IceFrog, aka the bloke that may or may not be called “Abdul Ismail”, said:
We want to try taking a different approach to how gameplay patches are released. Instead of big patches a couple of times a year, we’ll be releasing small patches every 2 weeks on Thursdays. We’ll be trying this out for about six months and then reevaluating.
— IceFrog (@IceFrog) February 1, 2018
Since the initial launch of DOTA2 in 2013, the team are only up to version 7.07d – while this may sound a lot, they did actually start at 6.79.
So in all truth, there hasn’t been loads of progress made in almost five years since the game’s release; something which has seen some community backlash in the past.
Could it make the game stale?
However, there are those that find larger updates and tweaks are better as it makes it feel like they’re playing a new game again.
For me, new large patches offer an exciting window to learn, theory-craft & explore. I can be absent from the game for a while but a big patch always offers me a way back in. I think this change stirs away from rewarding adaptability & could serve to make the game feel stale 😞
— CatZ (@ROOTCatZ) February 1, 2018
While some may not be pleased with the proposed changes, smaller updates would make it easier and more accessible for newer players to get to grips with the game.
As we’ve seen with the likes of Fornite – who consistently update their game with small tweaks – it does come with its pros and cons.
Facebook ESL Dota 2 viewing figures are way down
While the regular updates make the game exciting and keep players interested with new content, there is always the possibility that any update will cause plenty of instabilities – like we saw with Fornite’s V.2.1.0 release.
Do you think that regular updates will benefit DOTA 2 or will hinder the game? Let us know in the comments below.