[Update]: Dota Underlords has entered Open Beta and can now be played on both PC and mobile for free.

In a stark departure from their usually glacial speed, after a small leak Valve has recently come out to officially announce their Dota Auto Chess variant - Dota Underlords. Even more surprisingly, they have now straight up released the entire game for owners of Dota 2's The International 2019 Battle Pass!

However, if you don't play Dota 2 and you don't feel like purchasing anything just yet, there is no need to worry as the Open Beta will be coming in the near future. No official release date has been announced as of right now, but according to the announcement it's likely to arrive at some point next week.

Once the Open Beta launch everyone will be able to play Dota Underlords for free on Steam (Windows, Mac and Linux), Android and iOS. And yes, there will be both cross-play and progression sharing across all platforms and devices. Now that is pretty neat!

As you would expect from a beta, right now Dota Underlords is a little bit limited in terms of extra features. You can play online against seven other players, practice against a variety of bots offline, as well as team up with friends to do both of the above. Once the Open Beta arrives in full you can expect to see the previously mentioned cross-play features, as well as the very first version of ranked matchmaking.

So while Artifact may have ended up being a bit of a failure, it does appear that Dota Underlords is starting things off on the right foot! You can learn a little bit more about Dota Underlords, as well as grab yourself a Closed Beta copy, over at the Dota 2 website.