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Dota 2’s community tutorial is live now, just in time for the anime

The Dota 2 community anticipates an influx of players when Netflix's show arrives this week

It’s tough to describe Dota 2 to someone who’s never heard of it. MOBA games like Dota 2 are built on a complex set of often unintuitive rules, and learning them takes a lot of time and effort. With the Dota 2 anime arriving on Netflix this week, a group of dedicated Dota 2 modders have decided to make a brand new tutorial to Valve’s MOBA, and it’s live now in the Steam Workshop.

The Dota 2 Community Tutorial Project is an attempt to create a new player onboarding experience for people who become curious about the game after watching the upcoming animated series on Netflix. “Assuming that there will be an influx of new players brought in from the anime’s release, we have banded together as a community to create a tutorial for these new players in the form of a custom game,” the modders explain.

“Our main goal is to get them used to the game, learn its mechanics, and prepare them for their first bot match,” the description in the Steam Workshop reads. “Furthermore, we can do what Valve cannot: directly link community resources like [D]iscords, content creators, and guide websites to the players so that they may start on a more advanced journey to learn Dota 2.

The organisers have set up an IndieGoGo campaign in order to pay the modders who work on the project, and they’ve only had a month to work with. But in that time, they’ve raised nearly $30,000, with 12 days left in the crowdfunding campaign.

There are a few limitations to the project, which the modders acknowledge: like all custom games, it’ll ‘break’ as soon as a new major Dota 2 patch rolls out, and players still need 30 regular games of Dota 2 under their belts before accessing custom games. The modders hope to lobby Valve to waive this requirement, however, and are encouraging supporters to help them do exactly that.

Dota 2: Dragon’s Blood premieres on Netflix March 25, but you can start playing the community Dota tutorial right now by subscribing to it in the Steam Workshop.