He's big. He's red. He's got an Axe. Also his name's Axe. His hobbies? Most of them involve axes and the act of axing things with an axe. Plus he's now in his very own sixty-page comic. Is an axe involved somehow? Will Axe use it? Is Luke Skywalker a villain now? Is that why he's not in the trailers? Get the answers to all but those last two questions in The Last Castle Axe Comic. Along with the comic, all owners of The International 2015 Compendium will receive the Axe Immortal item today with the added bonus of a Soaring Cache treasure.

Also be sure to check out some of the Dota community’s Dota-inspired Saxxy contest shorts, Together We Stand and A Game of Roles.

He's big. He's red. He's got an Axe. Also his name's Axe. His hobbies? Most of them involve axes and the act of axing things with an axe. Plus he's now in his very own sixty-page comic. Is an axe involved somehow? Will Axe use it? Is Luke Skywalker a villain now? Is that why he's not in the trailers? Get the answers to all but those last two questions in The Last Castle Axe Comic. Along with the comic, all owners of The International 2015 Compendium will receive the Axe Immortal item today with the added bonus of a Soaring Cache treasure.

Also be sure to check out some of the Dota community’s Dota-inspired Saxxy contest shorts, Together We Stand and A Game of Roles.

The first day of the playoffs is in the books at Frankfurt and only twelve teams remain after Cloud9, Fnatic, Newbee and Newbee.Young have been eliminated. You can see where the rest of the bracket currently stands here. The action resumes tomorrow at 10:30am CET.

In the meantime, check out this piece about the reigning TI5 champions, Evil Geniuses.

Watch EG Champions of TI5

The first day of the playoffs is in the books at Frankfurt and only twelve teams remain after Cloud9, Fnatic, Newbee and Newbee.Young have been eliminated. You can see where the rest of the bracket currently stands here. The action resumes tomorrow at 10:30am CET.

In the meantime, check out this piece about the reigning TI5 champions, Evil Geniuses.

Watch EG Champions of TI5

The first Dota Major Championship is nearly upon us. The battle begins as sixteen of the world’s best teams enter the Group Stage. You can follow all the action live in the Dota 2 client by visiting the new ‘Featured Tournament’ section. Check out real-time brackets as well as links to watch any matches you may have missed. Coverage is scheduled to begin around 10:00am CET (here’s a helpful time zone converter).



Our film team has put together a few short features for the event. The first follows CDEC’s stunning run from Wild Card underdog to championship contender at The International while capturing the thoughts of some of the biggest names in the game as they prepare for the Frankfurt Major. In addition, we've just added all the player profile videos from TI5 to Steam.

Watch 'The Journey to the Majors'

Add this free app to get updated videos in the future directly onto your Steam account.

The first Dota Major Championship is nearly upon us. The battle begins as sixteen of the world’s best teams enter the Group Stage. You can follow all the action live in the Dota 2 client by visiting the new ‘Featured Tournament’ section. Check out real-time brackets as well as links to watch any matches you may have missed. Coverage is scheduled to begin around 10:00am CET (here’s a helpful time zone converter).



Our film team has put together a few short features for the event. The first follows CDEC’s stunning run from Wild Card underdog to championship contender at The International while capturing the thoughts of some of the biggest names in the game as they prepare for the Frankfurt Major. In addition, we've just added all the player profile videos from TI5 to Steam.

Watch 'The Journey to the Majors'

Add this free app to get updated videos in the future directly onto your Steam account.

This year, we felt the best way to mark the passage of October was to create a spooky, pumpkin-filled Custom Game. Haunted Colosseum is a new 5-on-5 battle for territorial control, complete with Capture Points, devilish traps, and warrior behemoths. It's available now, you can learn more about it here, and then launch Dota 2 to try it for yourself.



We've revamped the Custom Games overview page with the goal of promoting discovery of great Custom Games, and getting people into lobbies and playing as quickly as possible. To do that, we've replaced the "Suggested Games" list with an "Open Lobby" list, and we've added a new panel which highlights an automatically-chosen Game of the Day.



This update also includes the second Tribute treasure for Fall Compendium owners: the Tribute of the Sharpened Feather.

There are a lot of additonal changes and improvements in this update, such as a new section in your profile for showing off your tournament tickets, a way to see and manage your downloaded replays, support for offline solo play, a new matchmaking region in Tokyo with connectivity to Taiwan and Korea, a couple of balance changes with 6.85b, and more. Check out the complete notes for the full rundown.

This year, we felt the best way to mark the passage of October was to create a spooky, pumpkin-filled Custom Game. Haunted Colosseum is a new 5-on-5 battle for territorial control, complete with Capture Points, devilish traps, and warrior behemoths. It's available now, you can learn more about it here, and then launch Dota 2 to try it for yourself.



We've revamped the Custom Games overview page with the goal of promoting discovery of great Custom Games, and getting people into lobbies and playing as quickly as possible. To do that, we've replaced the "Suggested Games" list with an "Open Lobby" list, and we've added a new panel which highlights an automatically-chosen Game of the Day.



This update also includes the second Tribute treasure for Fall Compendium owners: the Tribute of the Sharpened Feather.

There are a lot of additonal changes and improvements in this update, such as a new section in your profile for showing off your tournament tickets, a way to see and manage your downloaded replays, support for offline solo play, a new matchmaking region in Tokyo with connectivity to Taiwan and Korea, a couple of balance changes with 6.85b, and more. Check out the complete notes for the full rundown.

Available exclusively to Fall Compendium owners, the new Soaring Cache treasure contains 7 new sets, including a rare set for Warlock complete with a new Golem summon. The cache also has a very rare chance to contain the Padda'pon of Ribbi'tar Death Ward item for Witch Doctor, which can further be customized by Prismatic Gems. Additionally, every fifth Soaring Cache you open will also yield a Bonus Cache which contains either 5, 11, 24 Compendium levels, the Warlock set or the Ribbi'tar Death Ward. Unlike the previous Collector's Cache items which were never tradable, the Soaring Cache items can be traded like normal Treasure items and are immediately giftable and fully tradable a month after the event ends. You can also recycle any Soaring Cache items for 2 Compendium Levels.

We've also made a number of improvements to increase everyone's coin earnings. We've removed the 5% cut from Coin Wager winnings and added Wager Bonuses which increase how many coins you can win from a match wager as well as allowing you to earn Coins even when the opponents did not wager. Compendium owners also now have a chance to receive a Coin Treasure or 750 Coin Pack at the end of a match.

When the Reborn Update released last month, new music arrived with it. The Dota 2 Reborn theme is an update to the original Dota 2 theme that also incorporates several new melodies which have been added to the game over the last several years. While the orchestra played, the cameras looked on. We'd like to present this look at the recording of the Dota 2 Reborn theme.

We are also pleased to announce that we have begun adding Russian voices to Dota's heroes. This first release includes the default announcer and nine heroes, with more voices coming soon. Players can select which voice language they would like to hear by opening Steam and right-clicking on Dota 2. From here, select Properties, then Language, and choose your preferred voice language. Steam will then download the new language.

Several other features and fixes are also included in today's update, including the return of Team Matchmaking, and the ability to share announcers with other players in your matches. Check out the update notes for more information.

Available exclusively to Fall Compendium owners, the new Soaring Cache treasure contains 7 new sets, including a rare set for Warlock complete with a new Golem summon. The cache also has a very rare chance to contain the Padda'pon of Ribbi'tar Death Ward item for Witch Doctor, which can further be customized by Prismatic Gems. Additionally, every fifth Soaring Cache you open will also yield a Bonus Cache which contains either 5, 11, 24 Compendium levels, the Warlock set or the Ribbi'tar Death Ward. Unlike the previous Collector's Cache items which were never tradable, the Soaring Cache items can be traded like normal Treasure items and are immediately giftable and fully tradable a month after the event ends. You can also recycle any Soaring Cache items for 2 Compendium Levels.

We've also made a number of improvements to increase everyone's coin earnings. We've removed the 5% cut from Coin Wager winnings and added Wager Bonuses which increase how many coins you can win from a match wager as well as allowing you to earn Coins even when the opponents did not wager. Compendium owners also now have a chance to receive a Coin Treasure or 750 Coin Pack at the end of a match.

When the Reborn Update released last month, new music arrived with it. The Dota 2 Reborn theme is an update to the original Dota 2 theme that also incorporates several new melodies which have been added to the game over the last several years. While the orchestra played, the cameras looked on. We'd like to present this look at the recording of the Dota 2 Reborn theme.

We are also pleased to announce that we have begun adding Russian voices to Dota's heroes. This first release includes the default announcer and nine heroes, with more voices coming soon. Players can select which voice language they would like to hear by opening Steam and right-clicking on Dota 2. From here, select Properties, then Language, and choose your preferred voice language. Steam will then download the new language.

Several other features and fixes are also included in today's update, including the return of Team Matchmaking, and the ability to share announcers with other players in your matches. Check out the update notes for more information.