Alexei “Solo” Berezin, a Dota 2 player from Virtus Pro, has threatened to boycott next month's Epicenter Major unless Valve condemns comments made by fellow pro Sébastien “7ckngMad” Debs, who referred to Russian opponents as “fucking animals” in a recent match.

Debs, also known as Ceb, was part of the team OG side that won The International 2018. In a recent match, Debs called a Russian opponent a "third-world dog", and said the other team were "Russian whores" that would "sell their mother for MMR"—you can see screenshots of the in-game chat here. 

In a later post on the Dota 2 subreddit, he said he wasn't "generalizing" Russian people, but rather pointing out that two "toxic" opponents who were deliberately trying to ruin the game were both Russian. "Both being Russians, I just named it," he said. However, he admitted that he had set a "very poor example", and he apologized for his choice of words.

Virtus Pro's Berezin, who is Russian, shared his thoughts on the incident on Friday, calling on Valve to ensure "consistency and transparency when it comes to treating racism in our game".

"I won’t be participating at the upcoming Epicenter Major that will be played in my home country unless Valve openly speaks about this case and ensures consistency and transparency when it comes to treating racism in our game," he said.

"I am proud to be Russian and your words leave me speechless. You’re not some young player who can do careless stuff because he might not understand the consequences. You’ve been in this game since the very start, you’ve earned a lot of respect and it makes the situation even worse."

If Valve did take action, it wouldn't be entirely unprecedented: it banned Carlo “Kuku” Palad from January's Chonqing Major for using racist insults against Chinese teams.

Thanks, Polygon.

World War Z developer Saber Interactive has dipped its toe into quite a few series, including Halo and Quake, and it looks like it also tried to add Half-Life to the list, asking Valve if it could remake Half-Life 2.  

"After we did Halo Anniversary and Halo 2 Anniversary, as part of the Master Chief Collection, I reached out to Gabe Newell personally, because I knew him from a past life, and I said I want to remake Half-Life 2," Saber's CEO Matthew Karch told Game Watcher. "That's all I want to do. I won't charge you anything for it. I'll do it for rev-share and doesn't even need to be a big rev-share. I just really want to do because I love that game so much."

Newell declined the offer and told Karch that, in the event a Half-Life 2 remake was on the cards, it would be developed internally. That's not been Valve's position previously, with the first Half-Life getting the remake treatment, and even a Xen expansion, in the form of Black Mesa. The difference is that it started out as a mod, though the distinction has been blurred by it being sold on Steam Early Access. 

While Newell's response isn't an indication that Valve has any plans to remake Half-Life 2, modders have made plenty of demos, Unreal recreations and even a Half-Life 2 remake for the original Half-Life. 

The Dota 2 International 2019 doesn't get underway until August, but The International Battle Pass, which grants owners access to exclusive content, features, and rewards, is available for purchase today. The "standard" Battle Pass can be had for $10, while higher level passes—with more rewards—are also available at discounted prices. 

This year's pass includes Wrath of the Mo'rokai custom game mode, a Jungle Expedition, and unlockable "Guardians of the Lost Path" custom towers that "will never be tradable or purchasable on the marketplace"—you either unlock them with the Battle Pass, or you miss out. 

New consumables, like the Trusty Shovel, the Snake Balloon, and the poop-flinging Silly Monkey will help you along the journey, a new Coach's Challenge will test your ability to guide lower-MMR players through matches, and new Party Finder will help you find fun people to play Dota 2 with, without having to screw around with your Steam Friends list. (Avoid Player, which does precisely the opposite, is also in there.) There's a new avatar banner, a High Five action, MVP voting, a new Versus screen, and more—it's a really extensive list. 

Returning features—because that's just the new stuff—include the ability to double down MMR rewards (or losses) once per week, Immortal item recycling, wagering, ranked roles, in-game tipping, trivia, predictions, the Daily Hero Challenge, and a slew of rewards that increase with Battle Pass levels. 

The point of all this, aside from loading up Dota 2 fans with stuff, is to pump up The International prize pool: 25 percent of Battle Pass sales are contributed to the pool, which is already pushing $2.7 million. The big show this year runs August 20-25. 

Update: Sorry, folks, but mere minutes after our story went live, Valve confirmed that the teaser is in fact a fake. It's still pretty cool though. You can read my our initial thoughts on the presumed-fakeness of the video in the original story below:

Original story: A very impressive teaser that turned up today on YouTube has a lot of people wondering if a new Left 4 Dead game has suddenly sprung a big leak, or if Valve is perhaps trying its hand at viral marketing. It could be—Valve did recently tease a new "flagship" game coming this year, after all, and this wouldn't be the first time we've heard whispers of Left 4 Dead 3—but the far greater likelihood, sorry to say, is that it's a fake. 

For one thing, the video is complete and polished but purely environmental, which isn't at all how Valve rolls: Left 4 Dead is frantic and visceral (check out this L4D2 teaser for evidence of that), and this, for all the atmosphere it stokes, is not. The zombie hand at the end is suspicious as well, because it's a direct copy of the original L4D hand rather than something indicating the third game in the series. Joke about Valve's inability to get to "three" if you will, but I can't see it breaking an established pattern on a major game franchise just to nod-and-wink at a silly inside joke. 

I think the presence of real-world products in the game, like Pepsi and Life, also points toward fakeness. You can't just throw stuff like that into your game or your promo materials without some sort of licensing deal, and there's no evidence of that—and I don't see Valve doing that sort of thing in one of its game worlds anyway.

So it's possible that this could be a surprise L4D3 leak, but only very, very (I mean, very) slightly possible. We've reached out to Valve to ask, just in case, but I'm confident enough to call it now: Very nicely done, yes, but also very fake. 

Predicting what Valve is and isn't going to do is a losing game, even with reliable information, so I'm giving myself a 1 percent chance of getting this completely right. 

Valve is going to reveal the specs of its VR headset, the Valve Index, very soon, and we have good reason to believe it'll reveal some VR games along with it—one of which is rumored to be a Half-Life game.

Valve told me on April 1 that it was "targeting May 1st for pre orders and a full announcement" of the Valve Index. That plan may have changed (especially because the Borderlands 3 gameplay reveal is also happening this week), but the announcement will probably happen soon, because Valve also told me that it wants to start shipping hardware in June. I've asked Valve if this Wednesday is still the big day, and will update this post if I hear back.

We also know for sure that Valve has been working on three VR games, which Gabe Newell described as full-sized games (as opposed to tech demo-like projects such as The Lab) in February 2017. "We think we can make three big VR games," Newell said at the time. "We think that we know enough now to do that, and we're going to find out if that’s the case. We're pretty sure that all the other game developers are going to learn positive or negative lessons from what we do, which is sort of where we have to be right now."

Valve didn't tell me whether or not it's going to announce any of those games when pre-orders for the Index open up, but that seems like the obvious move. I'd be surprised if one or more weren't bundled with the headset to drive sales.

Now for the Half-Life part of it: In November of last year, a source told UploadVR that one of the three upcoming Valve VR games is a Half-Life prequel. At the same time, UploadVR's sources confirmed that leaked images of the Valve Index were the real deal, and that turned out to be true. The photos from November 2018 look just like the actual hardware that was revealed earlier this month.

Additionally, Valve News Network reported in March that "hlvr" and references to a shotgun appear in a Dota 2 update. Valve game files are full of references to other games, and that doesn't always mean anything, but it does strengthen the credibility of UploadVR's report from last year.

To recap, here's what we know for sure:

• Valve is going to reveal the specs of the Valve Index soon, possibly on Wednesday.
• Valve plans to start taking pre-orders at the same time as the announcement.
• Valve plans to start shipping the headsets in June.
• Valve has been developing three "big" VR games for at least a couple years.

And here's what we're speculating about:

• Valve will probably announce one or more of its VR games with the Index specs.
• One or more games may be bundled with the Index.
• One of the games is rumored to be a Half-Life game, though not Half-Life 3.

As always with Valve, there's a small chance it does what all signs suggest it's going to do, and a much bigger chance it throws us a curveball at 5 pm on a Friday evening—but I'm certain that I'm at least partially right about all this. 

We'll be keeping an eye on the Valve Index Steam page this Wednesday to see if anything happens, whether it includes Half-Life or not.

The Mobility Mod adds wall-running straight out of Titanfall 2 to Half-Life 2. With it, you can even kill enemies by jumping on their heads. 

While a version of the Mobility Mod has been around for a while now, the modder behind it has now released a v2 that is also compatible with both of Half-Life 2's episodic follow-ups. Among the changes are new melee controls, so you can perform rocket-boosted surge attacks and multi-target crowbar slashes. Using the surge attack in the air will even let you fly, at least for a moment.

You can download v2 of the Mobility Mod from ModDB.

Thanks, DSOGaming.

The Native American Quinault Nation in the state of Washington has filed a lawsuit against Valve, stating that it "does not have a license to operate, facilitate or otherwise engage in any form of gambling."

While the Quinault Nation operates its own casino in Washington which is subject to heavy regulations from state and local government, its lawsuit alleges that Valve, which is also Washington-based, has an unfair advantage.

The focus of the lawsuit appears to be CS:GO skins, which led to the Washington State Gambling Commission ordering Valve to halt the 'gambling' of skins through Steam, back in 2016. At the time, a Valve spokesperson made it clear that using Steam to run a gambling business "is not allowed by our API nor our user agreements," and that it had sent cease and desist letters to over 40 websites. Another lawsuit against Valve over gambling was rejected back in October 2016.

This lawsuit, stamped April 3rd, alleges that Valve is "well aware of the skins gambling that goes on, is well aware that skins have real world cash value, which has increased their popularity and value, and actively encourages and facilitates skins gambling."

The lawsuit is more than 20 pages long. You can read the details here on Scribd (via Geekwire.com). Under the section marked 'Declaratory Relief', the lawsuit says the following. "Quinault therefore seeks immediate injunctive and equitable relief to force Valve to stop offering the crate opening online slot machine game, to stop offering the crate opening online slot machine game until the Washington Gaming Commission can examine it to determine if it requires a license, to suspend and/or eliminate one-way trades to take Skins gambling websites' main source of Skins transfers from occurring, and to take other steps as ordered by this Court to prevent ongoing hard to Quinault and the citizens of Washington from illegal online gambling." The section marked 'Prayer for relief' then mentions "restitution to Plaintiff of all monies wrongfully obtained by Defendant".

We've reached out to Valve for comment and will update if we get a response.

Reigning Dota 2 world champions, OG went up against a virtual AI team in San Francisco this past weekend. You can watch the game above. If you're worried about spoilers, look away now. 

OpenAI is the research organisation behind the fully AI team and has spent the last four years working on an artificial intelligence that can replicate human-level skill in Valve's Dota 2. OpenAI Five lost out at last years World Championships where it failed to defeat the two pro teams it was put up against. 

The hard work paid off though and culminated in success this weekend at the OpenAI Five Finals with the AI winning the first two matches against OG but losing out on the third. 

Practice makes perfect and that's certainly the case with OpenAI Five as the virtual team plays a whopping '180 years’ worth of games every day' as part of its training. Phew!

Thanks, VentureBeat.

MIBR were dressed in their electric yellow synthetic jerseys every time I saw them at IEM Katowice. Even if this was your first Counter-Strike tournament, even if you were walking into an esports hall completely blind to the culture, the national allegiance of the six young men on stage was aggressively clear. On the Brazilian flag, that yellow symbolizes wealth; it lit up the uniforms the Brazilian soccer team wore during each of their five World Cup titles, too. Last year, when this team switched parent companies from SK Gaming to Immortals, they resurrected a familiar name: MIBR, Made in Brazil, sheathed in the same colors that have delivered glory to their countrymen so many times before.

According to Marcelo "Coldzera" David, a player who at times has been the best Counter-Strike marksman in the world, that christening was a no brainer.

"We create a brand for Brazil. That's why we brought back MIBR, we want to represent our country, we want to make our country proud of us," he says. "To create a legacy. A Brazilian legacy."

The first teams fielded under the MIBR name date all the way back to 2003, during the Counter Strike 1.6 days, a time when esports was still largely underground and punk rock. As a nation, Brazil was in the halcyon stages of an economic boom, and its citizenry was falling in love with first-person shooters. "Since I was young Counter-Strike was always in the LAN houses. It was a game that didn't require an extremely good computer at the time," says Augusto César, a fan swaddled in a Brazilian flag, in the IEM Katowice food court. "For us it was a very simple game to play."

Two decades later, the country fields one of the best CS:GO squads in the world. The modern incarnation of MIBR captured a major title last year at the ZOTAC Cup, and five premieres and an additional major in 2017, under the SK banner. They represent a glacial power shift in the fabric of esports. Scroll through the attending teams at Katowice, and you'll see that between the Americans, the Ukrainians, and the French, MIBR is the only organization representing South America. 

You could feel it in the air. MIBR's success is an exception to the global rule. The fans know it, the scene knows it, and it summons up a one-of-a-kind passion. Katowice is a dinky Polish mining town at the southern end of the country, and the Spodek Arena is a communist-era UFO-like relic built in 1971 that serves hockey games and B-list festivals. Still, miraculously, the Brazilians showed up in droves for the boys.

They dotted the seats and the outer hallways, and most, like César, brought with them their national colors. That makes sense; if MIBR is going to wear a patriotic yellow, then it behooves their supporters to follow suit. But their loyalty took on a different texture than any of the other esports organizations at IEM. Sure, the Danes root for the Danish wunderkinds in Astralis, and it was genuinely heartwarming to see the underdog Finns in ENCE make a deliriously joyful run to the finals, but MIBR are the only ones to literally emblazon what they're fighting for in their name. Brazilians hear that call no matter where they are.

"I didn't play Counter-Strike for a while, I wasn't interested in it until Brazil started to get big. Like, 'Oh, Brazilians are really nice at this game, I need to play it too,'" continues César. "It's what got me into esports. Brazilian teams succeeding. I think most Brazilians are like that."

One of the things I love most about sports—the local, tribal pride, and its corresponding politics—has always been de-emphasized in competitive gaming. The Overwatch League's home cities may be slowly changing that. Generally, teams take their identity from an overarching brand or sponsor—we pull for our favorites the way 14-year olds pull for LeBron, regardless of what team he's currently playing for. But MIBR is a different beast.

The kinship is closer because of the sheer rarity of other Brazilian role-models in pop culture. Since 2016 the majority of the headlines coming out of the country have focused on either a beleaguered Olympics bid, a troubling presidential election, or mounting corruption scandals, but when Neymar Jr. joins Coldzera on Dust II, all of that fades away.

"Brazilians like to cheer for Brazilians that could win. It happens in soccer and basketball, when we have a chance to win a trophy, Brazilian blood heats up. One thing we miss in Brazil is someone who can represent us and show our good side," explains Rodrigo Guerra, a journalist who covers MIBR for ESPN Brazil. "A few decades back we had a famous driver, Ayrton Senna, and everyone woke up at four in the morning to cheer him. Because he's carrying our flag, he's showing how we can be one of the best. We're always named as a third-world country, that we don't have any potential, so anyone who can change that misconception, in any sport, it's very important to us."

I was left with one lingering question at Katowice: Why Counter-Strike? What is it about this game in particular that's found such a home in Brazil? Sure, you can catch a few stray Brazilian squads in DOTA, and fighting games represent one of the true international scenes on the planet, but when you look at League, or Overwatch, or StarCraft, you rarely find much star power outside of the European and East Asian strongholds. I'm not the only one who's noticed that, either.

"Since the beginning of esports in Brazil, everyone was playing Counter-Strike," says Guerra. "StarCraft, or League of Legends, it's not natural to us."

Everyone I posed that question to returned to the same core point. Counter-Strike was, and is, a fixture of the LAN cafe scene in Brazil, and its resonance in the games culture grew out from there. It just stuck. It's an answer that's about as arcane as anything else in the esports industry. I mean, why do South Koreans excel at StarCraft? A variety of historical accidents, that eventually coalesced into a national heritage and sense of ownership. This isn't an exact science. Coldzera, at least, is able to take a unique perspective, since he admits to me that he does keep a League of Legends habit during off-hours.

"League and Dota are amazing games, but the difference between our sport and them is that they're more mechanical," he says. "In Counter-Strike, you have to factor in the randomness. You can kill someone blind, you can spray and kill one more. That's why the game is so great. Things can be going really good, and it can be destroyed in one round. It gives you adrenaline. That's why I think Counter-Strike is the best game ever." 

Coldzera tells me he hears a lot of the same stories from people like César; Brazilians who loved video games, and loved their country, and were brought into the fold by the team's collective excellence. Coldzera himself has a great respect for the first incarnation of MIBR. Today, casters have even coined a term for the team's deliberate, slow-paced gameplay. "The Brazilian Style." You know you've made it when you're part of an institution.

MIBR lost in the semi-finals to Astralis, the eventual champions. When you look over the roster, you begin to see the glimmer of change on the horizon. Coldzera is 24, and both team captain Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo and Fernando "fer" Alvarenga will be 28 at the end of the year. They are still young by every conceivable measure except for esports, and while Counter-Strike is generally more friendly to the stringent burnout problems compared to other games, eventually a new generation of Brazilians will need to take up the banner.

It's a hope that MIBR welcomes with open arms. None of these players would ever give up their spot without a fight, but throughout the weekend, I noticed that they displayed a remarkable solidarity with FURIA, another Brazilian Counter-Strike team who made it into the qualifying Challengers bracket. (#DiaDeFuria, they tweeted, just before Valentine's Day, during one of their first matches of the tournament.)

Furia showed well, but didn't finish with enough wins to move on to the next level where they may have had a date with MIBR.  "They just need more experience. They have a long road, but they're on the right road," says Coldzera. "It's nice to see a new face for Brazil. … It's crazy to see how they [get better] every tournament."

Given that MIBR is the effective stand-in for Brazil's national team, I asked Coldzera what it'd be like to someday go against a Brazilian team in a major tournament—to have the throne challenged by someone in their backyard. As much as he cares for the future of his country's Counter-Strike scene, would it feel any different when he was staring that future in its eyes?

"That's gonna be nice," he laughs. "Brazil wins, no matter who wins."

Valve has released a companion app for subscribers to Dota 2's premium monthly subscription service, Dota Plus. The app lets you keep track of match and tournament results, as well as keeping you informed about your favourite players and teams. And then it lets you place wagers on them. 

The Dota Pro Circuit app, available for iOS and Android, will let you make 'predictions' on upcoming matches in the pro circuit, wagering your own shards—the Dota Plus exclusive in-game currency—in the hopes of adding to your pile. All the information you get about teams and players, then, can be used to make your predictions. 

No cash changes hands, unlike in the third party gambling that surrounds the game, though technically those shards are linked to financial investment because the currency (and thus what you can spend it on) is only available if you pay for the Dota Plus subscription. That's $4 a month. That technicality isn't enough to make it gambling, however; at least not to rating organisations like PEGI, which has given it a 3 rating, essentially meaning it's appropriate for all ages. 

The Dota Pro Circuit app feels like the latest in a years-long stream of game systems which have been pushing the debate around gaming systems and how close they come to gambling to the fore, though. 

Probably the most well-known facet of the debate involves loot box systems which encourage players to open in-game Macguffins to obtain digital presents of variable rarity or desirability. Often these are boxes or chests you can earn over time in the game or choose to circumvent that grind using real money. 

Another facet is the third-party gambling and trading scene around games like Valve's CS: GO where players circumvent Valve's systems in order to use in-game cosmetics as a gambling currency. The real money comes in when players make payments via third party sites and then use the steam trade function to hand over their digital goodies. 

Despite the PEGI classification (and I should stress that PEGI do not set the legal definition of gambling, they're merely an enforcer), I'd argue the mechanics of the Dota Pro Circuit app's predictions are a lot closer to real-world gambling than, say, Overwatch's loot boxes. 

You can study the teams, check the odds, place a bet with a cash stand-in, get that thrill when you get a shard windfall—the most significant difference is that it's all taking place within Dota 2. You can't head to the bank with your pile of shards and make a nest egg. It's a new grey area in a debate filled with grey areas.  

The app's available now, and you can check out the full feature list here.