Valve adds hats to Dota Underlords Season 1, because of course it did

The first season of Valve's autobattler Dota Underlords is now underway, bringing with it a Battle Pass with more than 100 in-game rewards to earn, a new hero, and a new cinematic trailer telling the unexpectedly short story of Momma Eeb and the city of White Spire.

The big changes in the full release of Dota Underlords were actually revealed late last week, but an update release today gets into the details. Ace effects have been removed from the game, Item Rounds have been changed, Scrappies and Inventors have been rotated out, while Summoner, Vigilant, and Void alliances are in. The followings heroes have also been rotated out:

  • Alchemist
  • Bounty Hunter
  • Clockwerk
  • Enchantress
  • Gyrocopter
  • Kunkka
  • Sniper
  • Timbersaw
  • Tinker

While these heroes are in:

  • Arc Warden
  • Magnus
  • Luna
  • Windranger
  • Mirana
  • Tidehunter
  • Enigma
  • Nature's Prophet
  • Templar Assassin

Like battle passes for other games, the Dota Underlords Battle pass offer a range of in-game rewards including new boards, map props, and wanted poster art. "Many rewards can be earned for free, but for full access to all City Crawl content and all 100 rewards on the Battle Pass, players can purchase the Battle Pass for $4.99," Valve said. "The paid Battle Pass is not required to play the game, nor does it provide any gameplay advantage."

And did I mention there are now hats? Because of course there are hats. In Dota Underlords, they're not strictly cosmetic, but add an additional Alliance and other powers to the equipped unit. "Alliances" confer bonuses to characters when they're matched up with others who share similar traits, like Assassin, Healer, or Primordial. Each character has at least two, and the more Alliances a character has, the more flexible they are—so popping a hat on their heads will definitely be useful.

The full details on Dota Underlords Season 1 launch update are available on Steam.

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.