The hype going to The International 2019 just got higher as it was revealed to the Dota 2 community that Valve has applied for a trademark for “Dota Underlords.” Whatever that refers to has everyone guessing.
Valve has been known to make big announcements during every TI. Since 2017, Valve has used the tournament to introduce upcoming heroes. In TI6 it was Monkey King. Valve surprised everyone in the arena during TI7 by introducing two new heroes in Pangolier and Dark Willow. For TI8, two heroes were again introduced in Mars and Grimstroke. However, that does not appear to be the case with the current trademark since Underlord is already a hero in Dota 2.
Taking a look at the US Patent and Trademark Office, it appears that there are three trademark filings related to Dota Underlords, all filed last May 6. The three trademark filings are classified as:
- entertainment services, namely, providing online video games
- action figures
- computer game software
There are a number of guesses on what this product relates to, but so far many agree that it won’t be their own version of Dota Auto Chess.
One guess that many in the Dota 2 community are looking into is that "Dota Underlords" will be a mobile game. In terms of the MOBA genre, the big titles have yet to enter the mobile game market. For now, the field has been dominated by a number of strong games like Arena of Valor, Mobile Legends, Vainglory, and Brawl Stars. Other genres have also made a big splash in the mobile market. We have PUBG Mobile, Fortnite Battle Royale, and Rules of Survival. Even Call of Duty has announced that it will be releasing a mobile version.
Another prediction is that it could be a dungeon crawler similar to Diablo. This is another strong possibility as well, given that Blizzard has confirmed it will move forward with Diablo Immortal despite the initial negative reaction.
What is interesting is that the trademark filing includes one for action figures. So does this mean that Valve is going to release its own Funko versions of the Dota 2 heroes? We highly doubt it, but it only means that Valve could release merchandise related to this new release.
While we will only know until Valve makes the actual announcement, we’re going to take a shot and say that it is likely related to mobile gaming.
What about you? What do you think Dota Underlords is all about? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
