
Each player in the Auto Chess lobby has an 8×8 tiled board, their play area for the duration of the game. You don’t need to know what Dota 2 is or how to play it to play Auto Chess, you just need to download it. Like most good custom games, it’s a hodgepodge of various genres that becomes something new in its own right. It’s chess mostly in aesthetic, but the custom mod for Valve’s Dota 2 is better-described as a hybrid of tower defense, poker, and tactics. Auto Chess?ĭota Auto Chess is not exactly what the name might imply. But its surging popularity seems on course to repeat the history of most popular multiplayer game mods: an original idea becoming someone else’s money-making machine. Simply titled “ Dota Auto Chess,” it has launched Dota into some of its highest concurrent player counts in ages and drawn in new streamers and audiences.

This past month, the five-on-five heroic warfare simulator Dota 2 has seen a surge in popularity thanks to a custom game mode developed by the independent Drodo Studio.
