Valve Releases new game DOTA UNDERLORDS in Beta based on the DOTA Autochess Mod

After much leaks and speculation about a Valve made DOTA Autochess, Valve has released DOTA Underlords for beta testing.  According to Valve, Dota Underlords is a new stand-alone game that pits you against seven opponents in a battle of wits where victory is determined not by twitch reflexes, but by superior tactics.

Owners of the Battle Pass can now opt-in to the Underlord beta from the Dota 2 client.  There will be a link  to add Dota Underlords to their Steam library on the Dota 2 dashboard.  After approximately a week of stress testing, Open Beta will begin.

Once the open beta begins, Dota Underlords will be available to everyone for free on Steam (Windows, Mac, and Linux), Android, and iOS. In addition, the team will be enabling the first set of new features including ranked and cross platform play.

Meanwhile, the original Dota Auto Chess modders are making a version exclusive to the Epic Games Store.  It might be interesting to see how this pans out after Valve's spectacular failure with Artifact.