A week and a half ago, the Auto Battler Dota Underlords by Valve launched and successfully debuted on Steam. However, the numbers have since plummeted. Is the hype around the game already over?
How did the launch of Dota Underlords go? With the launch of the new Auto Battler, Valve, the company behind Steam, must be very pleased. Just a few hours after the release of the open beta, almost 150,000 players were playing Underlords simultaneously.
On Sunday, June 23, at around 4:00 PM, the current all-time high of 202,254 concurrent players was reached.
At the same time, according to Sullygnome, between 350 and 600 different channels were streaming Underlords, with nearly 60,000 people watching at peak.
What is the situation today? After just over a week, the numbers are significantly sobering. The Steamcharts show a clear downward trend.
In the last 24 hours, only 111,805 players played Dota Underlords at peak (as of July 2 at 3:00 PM). The all-time low, not counting an hour without data, occurred last night at 1:00 AM with just 46,291 players.
On Twitch, only 127 to 307 different streamers were streaming Underlords in the last 24 hours and peaked at only 11,791 viewers.
Strong Competition and Different Game Mechanics Cause Decline
What caused the decline in player numbers? A significant impact on the player numbers of Dota Underlords is likely the release of Teamfight Tactics, the Auto Chess for League of Legends.
TFT created a large hype on Twitch even before its official release. On average, according to Sullygnomes, 95,538 viewers watched streams of Teamfight Tactics over the last 14 days, placing the game third behind LoL and Fortnite and well ahead of Dota 2 (6th place).
TFT benefits from a large LoL fanbase and also from mechanics that it implements differently. Dota Underlords has a game too simple item system, too little atmosphere, and too strong a mobile character for some players.
In contrast, Teamfight Tactics shines with a good item system and the carousel, which is very popular among many players.
Is Dota Underlords a flop? Even though the numbers have dropped by almost 50%, Dota Underlords is likely not considered a flop from Valve’s perspective.
A decline after the release of a game is not unusual, and the numbers are still at a good level. With around 90,000 players on July 2 at 3:00 PM, it ranks 6th among the most played games on Steam at that moment.
Valve is likely also satisfied because their game Artifact, released in November 2018, performed significantly worse despite receiving much more promotion.
It peaked at only about 60,000 players and had less than a third of Dota Underlords. The decline here was also much faster. By early January, 97% of all players were already gone.
What’s next for Underlords? Dota Underlords is in a better state of implementation and performance than its competitor Teamfight Tactics.
And while foundational systems are still being worked on in TFT, Dota Underlords has already seen several patches that adjusted the balance.
A hallmark of the Dota 2 mod Auto Chess was the swift balance changes and regular new champions being introduced to the game.
If Valve addresses these points and keeps Dota Underlords current, old players could return and new ones could be acquired.
A significant plus is definitely the mobile implementation of Underlords. TFT struggles here because it is bound to the League of Legends client, which has not yet been implemented for smartphones.
In the tier list, you get a good overview of the currently best and worst heroes of the Dota Underlords meta:
