Cloud Information and Distribution

Dota 2’s new Overwatch system has arrived

January 27, 2021 Overwatch has officially arrived in Dota 2, Valve has announced.

Late last year, Valve announced that Dota 2 was getting an “Overwatch-style system” similar to CS:GO’s. That system has now arrived in the multiplayer game, following a host of images posted by Dota 2 community members who saw the Overwatch snapshots show up in their clients early.

“Dota 2 now has Overwatch,” fan Upsign notes on the MOBA game’s reddit with a screenshot of a ‘Review Overwatch Case’ feature (included below) which explains the purpose of the new system. “Overwatch allows the Dota 2 community to regulate itself by providing a method for qualified and experienced members of the community to review reports of griefing or cheating, determine whether reports are valid, and submit guilty convictions if appropriate,” the card reads. It gives the reviewer the option to check out a replay of the play in question and review the case.

Additionally, Matthew Bailey, director of operations at esports organisation Team Secret, has posted a bunch of screens showing the system’s various aspects. For example – as you can see down below – there’s an explainer setting the threshold for resolution.

This guides the reviewer on how to go about selecting ‘guilty’, ‘not guilty’, and ‘insufficient evidence’ outcomes on topics such as “cheating, hacking, and scripting” and “griefing or abusive behaviour”, with an additional option to close a case without submitting judgement if a reviewer doesn’t “feel that [they] were able to dedicate the appropriate attention level required to reach a verdict”.

Dota now has Overwatch from DotA2

As late as January 27, it looked like the final elements of the system were still being worked out and tinkered with, with different versions of the screens appearing in Bailey’s images.

In the replies to the Reddit post showing the ‘Review Overwatch Case’ screen, Dota 2 dev OtherJeff_Valve says: “We had a bug that was causing this to appear in some cases. A new client was just released that fixes the bug”, so it sounds like it’s not quite ready to be rolled out to live just yet.

Now, Valve has made it official – a new post on the Dota 2 blog has announced that Overwatch is now live in Dota 2, and the company says it will be expanding the pool of eligible reviewers over the course of the following week or so.

In the meantime, check out our rundown of the best Dota 2 heroes to try out if you’re looking for some pointers.