In other, ouroboric news, one of Warcraft 3’s most popular custom maps has been reborn in the new Dota 2 client’s custom game mode, thus completing the game development cycle.
Still plenty of inspiration for more custom games in these old PC games.
Dota 2 originally spawning out of a modded game-mode within Warcraft 3 itself, many of the early custom games in Valve’s Reborn client launched last year were throwbacks to player-made maps and modes which co-existed in the WC3 community.
SWAT, the latest to make its “official” leap into the next generation, is a team-based wave defense with corridors and rooms to organise yourselves around.
There are currently seven classes with support for up to nine players, though five is the recommended minimum for survival. Each class has their own skill tree and abilities can be upgraded throughout the game as waves are cleared.
In classic style, waves become harder and harder to repel until you simply die, but the current build offers three difficulty settings with a further two to come, and saves your stats and progress between games to earn ranks and prestige for small perks with little bearing on your next gameplay performance.
You can subscribe to the game mode on SWAT’s Steam workshop page to make it available in Dota 2, or search via the in-game Custom Games tab.