Well, would look at that, Valve made a new video game and you can play it right now. The new game is Sleet Fighter and it’s a DOTA 2-themed 2D fighter that exists within the popular MOBA.
On July 9, Valve’s extremely popular MOBA, DOTA 2, received a new update as part of its larger Crownfall season, which is a new way for Valve to deliver updates and rewards for DOTA 2. The event is split up into different acts. And on Tuesday, Valve released Act Three, the next big patch for DOTA 2. Inside this new update is a tiny, but impressively well-made fighting game featuring DOTA characters and locations.
As reported by Dot Esports, this new fighting game is called Sleet Fighter (…get it!?) and is a 2D fighter featuring five DOTA characters. Each character has a full move list and the game supports both single-player modes and a multiplayer option that lets you play either online against friends or locally using a second controller.
It’s wild how good Sleet Fighter looks based on gameplay clips I’ve seen on YouTube and Twitter. This isn’t some quickly made browser thing, but an actual mini-fighting game complete with leaderboards and its own rewards. You can tell this is a real fighting game because if you look online you’ll see people creating tier lists and arguing over them in the comments. I’ve also found people compiling move lists and figuring out frame data, too. That sounds like a fighting game community to me!
It’s almost frustrating to see Valve put so much work and effort into making a fighting game for DOTA 2 that will leave once Crownfall is over in October. Or maybe it won’t be removed. Perhaps all the positive feedback will convince Valve to invest a bit more into it and let it live on as a free-fighting game inside DOTA 2.
How to play Sleet Fighter
If you want to check out Sleet Fighter yourself you’ll first need to download and install DOTA 2. (Don’t worry, it’s free.)
Then launch the game and open up Act Three’s “The Frosts of Icewrack” section on the home screen. You’ll then need to work your way through the story mode a bit before you can find “Sleet Fighter 2: Immortal Combat” at a fork in the road.
Once inside the Severed Head Pub, you’ll be able to select a mode and begin fighting players or the computer to earn rewards. The five available characters in Sleet Figther are Tusk, Shendelzare, Bristleback, Dawnbreaker, and Marci.
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