Dota 2 update 6.84 includes nod to Terry Pratchett

14 Dota2

That promised Dota 2 "major balance update" is in testing, and as the patch notes reveal, it's a doozy. It's probably too early to tell whether it will change the dotes in any significant ways, but the community has uncovered a reference to the much-missed Terry Pratchett in the meantime.

One of Dota 2's new endgame items is called the Octarine Core, an object "formed from Mystic Staff and Soul Booster" that reduces all cooldowns by 25%, and bolsters intelligence, HP, mana and some other bits. Octarine, you might be aware, is the colour of magic, as seen in Terry Pratchett's 'The Colour of Magic'. It is not the name of a fruit; you're thinking of pineapples.

It isn't the first game to smuggle in a reference to the author—Elite: Dangerous recently honored Pratchett with the addition of a new starport named Pratchett's Disc.

Dota 2's update 6.84 changes so many things that I'm not going to list them, but you can check out the ginormous notes here. (Thanks, Eurogamer.)

Correction: The patch is now available in the Dota 2 Test client; not live in the game.

Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.