Blizzard has announced at Blizzcon that four new internally-developed mods are in the works for StarCraft 2, including StarJeweled, Left 2 Die, Aiur Chef, and Blizzard DOTA.
As the name suggests, Blizzard DOTA is indeed a spiritual successor to the popular Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients, although this version will feature “hero” characters from all of Blizzard’s franchises — “a bit like Super Smash Bros,” according to Sigatay. The demo Blizzard showed had Raynor, Kerrigan, and Zeratul from StarCraft, Sylvanas and Muradin from Warcraft, and what Eurogamer described as “comedy hybrid characters,” including a baby Murloc wearing a space marine suit called Grunty, and Blizzard’s house band mascot, Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain.
Of course, you may know by now that Valve is developing their own version of DOTA using their Source engine, and even filed to trademark the phrase “DOTA” — a move that “doesn’t seem the right thing to do,” as Blizzard’s Rob Pardo said to Eurogamer. “It just seems a really strange move to us that Valve would go off and try to exclusively trademark the term considering it’s something that’s been freely available to us and everyone in the Warcraft III community up to this point,” Pardo explained.
