Valve is celebrating Dota 2's 10th anniversary in a non-traditional way. While the game has offered Battle Pass (originally called Compendium) in its prize pool for international tournaments every year, Valve has decided not to offer Battle Pass this year. In fact, Valve has promised to significantly reduce its focus on Battle Pass content and instead focus on more regular updates that the entire Dota 2 player base can experience.

In a post to the Dota 2 blog titled "Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future," Valve said that the Dota 2 Battle Pass "has grown to encompass all the content we produce for Dota in one year." It created "a tremendously exciting time in Dota," but meant that "the rest of the year felt [barren] in comparison."

So Valve conducted an experiment. Valve experimented with an idea that in any other year would have put development resources into the development of The International 2023's Battle Pass, "but instead put them into more thoughtful updates that included features and content that didn't fit into the Battle Pass. This effort paid off in the form of the New Frontiers update for Dota 2, a patch so large that it "basically became Dota 3," in the words of PCG's Jody MacGregor.

"Most Dota players never buy Battle Pass and never get any rewards from it," Valve said, but "every Dota player has explored the new maps, played with the new items, and accidentally died on Tormentor. The community's positive response to the New Frontiers update has given Valve "confidence that reducing cosmetic content for Battle Pass and working on a variety of exciting updates is the right long-term path for Dota, both as a game and as a community. confidence that this is the right path for Dota both as a game and as a community."

It is somewhat surprising to hear that the majority of players do not even purchase Battle Pass anyway, but it makes sense. We often hear that the bulk of a game's microtransaction revenue comes from a relatively small number of dedicated players (or "whales" as they are commonly referred to); Dota 2 is clearly different.

Valve is still trying to sell a variety of strange cosmetic and underwhelming particle effects. Valve says, "We plan to offer a variety of cosmetic offerings this year, but we're also going to offer more diverse updates for all Dota players to enjoy."

It appears to begin with an "[International] themed update" this September, which will focus on the event itself, the players, and the games being held, with "new cosmetic items not playing a prominent role," Valve said. intentionally not calling this update Battle Pass in order to shift the focus toward the event and away from the huge reward line of cosmetics," it said. As with the former Battle Pass, sales from this update will contribute to The International's prize pool, but it may be a bit lower this year because it does not have the glitz, glamour, and FOMO that the Battle Pass usually brings.

Whether this means shutting down Dota 2's Battle Pass system altogether, or whether Valve is going to temporarily skip it and return with a lighter, less development-intensive version, is not clear from this post. We have contacted the company to find out and will update this post if we hear back.

For now, look forward to Dota 2's 10th anniversary update; Valve has not said when this update will be available, but it will not be available on Dota 2's actual 10th anniversary (July 9). He said, "We will never meet the July 9 date listed on Steam, so Dota fans, take heart, it's not going to happen.