Defence of the Ancients pits two teams of five players against each other in highly competitive, 40-minute or longer matches. Each player controls a single hero who levels up and stockpiles gold to purchase powerful equipment and consumables. As computer-controlled armies continually spawn and rush the enemy's base, players are responsible for using their powerful heroes to turn the tide of the battle in their favor.

Post news Report RSS Valve Teases DOTA 2 VR Spectator Mode

Could this be the future of eSports VR livestreams?

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Hidden away amongst the HTC Vive launch materials that went up today was a small snippet of gameplay in one of the trailers promoting miscellaneous aspects of SteamVR. It depicts a never-before-seen VR spectator mode for DOTA 2, with what looks like a full suite of eSports-conscious features.

The trailer begins by hinting that players should "...Look forward to more VR features coming to [their] favourite games", and fades in to reveal a wall-size projection of a standard DOTA 2 spectator view. So far, so normal - however, the viewer then gazes to the side to reveal fully interactive DOTA 2 hero models, depicting the characters that each player is using. Selecting those heroes reveals their held items and current spell cooldowns.

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The user then looks down to reveal a fully 3D representation of the DOTA 2 map, with icons showing in real-time where each hero is positioned. They are then able to bring up graphs showing the difference between gold and experience points earned between each team in that match.

This small snippet already looks like an incredibly cool way to integrate VR into eSports spectating, something Valve has already been on top of with DOTA 2's client integration into major tournaments like The International. Though this probably wouldn't compare to actually being at the arena, it could be the next best thing.

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