Look familiar? If you happen to be part of the Dota 2 community, you likely saw a lot of ‘GIVE DIRETIDE’ spam around Halloween. The event, claimed to be annual last year and mysteriously missing this year, gave players a new game mode to play and win items.
Some community members were upset at the lack of the mode itself, while others were more upset that Valve didn’t communicate with the fans. With so much buzz and subsequent backlash, it was a surprise to many that Valve kept quiet between Halloween and November 1st.
In a news post released yesterday, we now know two things:
A large content patch Valve is ‘confident that you’ll be happy’ with is going to be released soon. Diretide is coming along with this patch.
The post itself goes into detail on why Diretide did not launch in a timely manner this year, and why Valve decided to stay quiet. It is well-worth a read, even if all you want at this point is to beat on a pumpkin for some candy.
With Dota 2 having been officially released just a few months ago, the decision to skip Diretide is a confusing one. The game’s competitors sported at least some form of Halloween celebration, and even Valve’s own Team Fortress 2 had a whole event of its own. Was this really the ideal time to be passive, even with a big patch in the works?
All disappointment aside, this has certainly become a ‘better late than never’ situation. Dota 2 gets Halloween late this year. Better than none at all.
