The Dark Carnival event has finally launched in Dota 2, after months of speculation and waiting. The event brings with it a massive new meta game, lots of new cosmetics and obviously a whole lot of lore.
Much like other events that came before it, most notably the Crownfall event from a few years ago, the Dark Carnival event features a massive meta game that you can progress through by playing Dota matches.
Every time you play a standard Dota match, you will earn tickets depending on the hero you play. Once you have the required tickets, you can use them to progress to the next area of the Dark Carnival map, unlocking the next chapter of the story and potentially some rewards.
The map also has a few mini-games thrown in for you to try your hand at, and features a fully voiced story that focuses on Hoodwink and Legion Commander, who have seemingly been captured and put on a train by Ring Master.
Obviously there is a load of new cosmetics to go along with the event, including five new personas that turn heroes into clockwork robots. Bristleback, Oracle, Morphling, Legion Commander and Axe are the beneficiaries of the new personas, and while they come at a fairly premium price, they look incredibly cool. There are also 20 new hero sets, all with a carnival theme, and again a lot of them look really good. These are certainly some of the better cosmetics we have seen recently.
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The Dark Carnival is available right now in Dota 2 following a new patch and, much like the game itself, is completely free to play. There are a lot of microtransactions you can partake in if you wish, but the core of the event is free for everyone.
After so long without a major event in Dota 2, some fans have already voiced their displeasure with what looks like a very similar event to Crownfall. However, given the event has only just launched, and there is a lot of content that is yet to be unlocked that feels like a little bit of an unfair judgement this early on.
In a blog post the Dota 2 development team also said that this is just the first part of the event and that there is more to come, so it is probably fair to assume that this event will grow just as Crownfall did. Hopefully that means there is still a chance of some kind of custom game mode or PvE experience that the community has been requesting for years at this point. But even if that doesn’t arrive, it feels great to have a major new event in Dota 2 once again, and this should significantly boost player numbers.