Valve to release Dota 2 as fast as it can

Valve has revised its plan for the launch of Dota 2 to get it out sooner to fans.

In an update on the official Dota 2 blog, developer IceFrog revealed Valve will release the current version of the game, which uses the heroes seen in The International tournament held over Gamescom, as fast as it can.

"Our original plan was to spend the next year or so in beta, adding new features and slowly growing the number of heroes until we reached a level of parity with Dota 1, at which point we'd release Dota 2 to the world," IceFrog said.

"But the feedback we're seeing everywhere is that people just want to play it, even though there's still a ton of heroes yet to be implemented. We've also seen that the folks who are already in the beta are chomping at the bit to show everyone else some of the fun games they've had. So we decided our original plan was dumb.

"Welcome to the new plan: We're going to take the current version of Dota 2, which has The International set of heroes, and get it out there as fast as we can."

Valve is currently running an invite-only closed beta. This will remain the case for a "hopefully short" period of time.

Regular updates are planned, with more heroes, new features and improvements.

"What does this mean for you?" IceFrog wrote. "It means it's even more important that you get on the list that we'll be inviting from."

Valve is yet to announce how it will charge people to play Dota 2 - although a recent beta leak suggested the game will be free to play with microtransactions.

At Gamescom Valve boss Gabe Newell told Eurogamer Dota 2 won't ship until next year.