Dota 2 is Valve's five-versus-five multiplayer online battle arena, and one of the two games that defined the genre. Two teams of five defend opposite corners of a single map, each player controlling one hero, and the match is won by destroying the enemy's Ancient.
Every one of the game's heroes is available to every player from the first match. Nothing in the roster is locked, earned or sold, which is unusual for the genre and is the reason competitive integrity has never depended on what a player has spent. Revenue comes entirely from cosmetics.
A match runs roughly 30 to 50 minutes and moves through distinct phases. Early on players farm gold and experience in lanes; mid-game brings skirmishes over objectives; late game turns on single team fights that can end the match outright. Gold buys items from a shop that changes what a hero can do, so builds are chosen against the enemy team rather than fixed in advance.
The depth is considerable and so is the learning curve — day-night cycles, denying your own creeps, courier logistics, high ground vision, hero-specific item timings. It is widely considered among the hardest multiplayer games to learn, and the reason its player base stays as long as it does.
Free on Windows, macOS and Linux through Steam, with ranked matchmaking and the annual International tournament built around it.
Valve develops and operates Dota 2, having built it from the original Warcraft III custom map with the involvement of that map's principal designer. Valve also runs the game's competitive circuit.
