A DOTA Underlords trademark has been recently registered by Valve, hinting at the possibility of something new coming from the Washington-based developer. DOTA is one of Valve’s most popular titles on its digital distribution platform, Steam, and it seems likethe series might be bringing a new game into the mix — although it’s possible that we’re getting something that we didn’t quite expect.
The DOTA Underlords trademark was recently highlighted on Reddit’s /r/Games. It was filed on May 6, 2019. The name itself raises several questions; while there is a character called Vrogros the Underlord in DOTA 2, we can’t really be sure what exactly the name means in terms of the game’s lore otherwise. Presumably, Vrogros is going to be bringing some of his friends to this new party (whatever it may be).
What’s a bit strange is that the DOTA Underlords trademark has some seemingly-strange US trademark class codes applied to it:
- 021 : Household Utensils
- 023: Yarns and Threads
- 026: Lace an Embroidery
- 036: Insurance and Finance Services
- 038: Telecommunications Services
While some of these might seem weird at first glance, the lot of them make a good deal of sense for a video game trademark. As an example, “Household Utensils” includes “glassware, porcelain and earthenware not included in other classes”, meaning that they would be able to use this trademark on those items. Several of these additional categories may be used for merch featuring the DOTA Underlords name.
Unfortunately, we don’t know much more about DOTA Underlords aside from the name itself and the other information in the trademark application. This could be a piece of content for DOTA 2, an Artifact expansion, or something entirely new. Perhaps this is going to be one of Valve’s upcoming dedicated VR games for their new Valve Index VR headset. Whatever Underlords ultimately turns out to be, it’s sure to be interesting.
