If there is something we didn’t anticipate it was Valve announcing the end date of the Dota 2 Battle Pass. What does this mean for The International?
Ever since the global virus threat emerged, all LAN events were canceled. The Dota 2 Battle Pass for 2020 came out a few weeks later than usual due to the coronavirus pandemic and the fact that many companies had to adapt to the situation. This Saturday Valve began work on additional fixes to an ongoing issue with the Dota 2 coordinator. In addition to that though, something else was revealed – the end date of the Battle Pass.
In today's update we will be extending the Battle Pass end date by a week, from Sep 12 to Sep 19. We have also made a few improvements to the Game Coordinator today, and will continue to investigate some more clues related to the extreme load surge that happened at 4AM Seattle.
— DOTA 2 (@DOTA2) June 19, 2020
There’s no doubt that Valve extended the duration in order to make up for the recent connectivity issues that many fans have experienced. On the other hand, the announcement of the end date is something of a surprise as it usually comes right after the conclusion of The International. The problem with that is that the biggest Dota 2 event of the year is still uncertain. With the current situation, many of us expected that this Battle Pass will be the longest one we’ve seen. It seems that Valve have other plans though. By the looks of it, the 2020 Battle Pass and The International 2020 won’t be as close to one another as we hoped.
When is The International 2020 happening?
Last time we checked Valve announced that The International 2020 is postponed indefinitely. That was back in April. This year’s edition of the prestige event was set to mark it’s 10 year anniversary and make a return to Europe, where it all began. Usually, TI takes place in mid to late August. Now it became clear that the Pass will come to an end in mid-September, but the exact date for The International still remains a mystery. At this point, we seriously doubt it’ll happen in 2020, so 2021 might be a better guess. Furthermore, there’s still no information on the rest of the Valve-sponsored events. With the removal of Minor tournaments and the introduction of regional leagues, the next Dota 2 competitive season will be very different from what we’ve seen so far. It’s all supposed to start this fall, but considering that the global situation is still not under control it’ll come as no surprise if the LAN events get delayed too.
Valve sure shocked us with the end date for the Battle Pass, so who knows. Maybe they will make another big announcement regarding The International sooner than we think.
Stay tuned for more Dota 2 news and make sure to check out EarlyGame for more news and videos.
