In anticipation of the upcoming Gamescom Dota 2 tournament, Valve Software has launched a cinematic trailer for the game that seems oddly familiar.
The clip came packaged alongside a Valve press release on the aforementioned tourney, and far be it from me to deny Gabe Newell’s pals an opportunity to shill their wares.
In anticipation of The International, the inaugural Dota 2 Championships at Gamescom from August 17-21, Valve has released the first Dota 2 trailer today. Experience the world and heroes of Dota 2 through the narrative of its colorful shopkeeper.
The International features the 16 best Dota teams in the world competing in the Dota 2 Championships through a group stage, double elimination playoff format over the course of Cologne’s five-day trade show.
The tournament will be broadcast in four languages (Chinese, German, Russian, and English) free of charge. The winning team will receive $1 million. In addition to the cash prizes awarded by Valve, NVidia is providing all the hardware for the event.
The really interesting bit here however, is that trailer below. It’s so well-animated that you could mistake it for a Blizzard Entertainment product!
Yes, I realize that given this game’s circuitous heritage — quick primer: Dota 2 is a sequel to a fan-made modification for Blizzard’s WarCraft 3 called Defense of the Ancients and the lengths to which Valve is stretching this game to avoid possible legal hassles are incredibly entertaining (possibly for me alone) — it couldn’t help but invite comparisons to Blizzard’s fine games, so I hope that in this case, Valve sees my comments as complimentary.
If anything, this trailer looks like it was spawned during a night of sweet, drunken love between World of WarCraft and Team Fortress 2, and barring the metaphorical ickiness of that coupling, none of you can honestly say you wouldn’t pay good money for a piece of the ensuing offspring.
