Dota 2 Major Championships announced

The world of professional Dota is about to get a lot busier. Valve have just announced the Dota Major Championships, an annual series of 'marquee' tournaments that will include their established The International event. The other three shindigs, they say, "will be Valve-sponsored events hosted by third-party organizers at different locations around the world".

As you can see in the above picture, there will be an event in each season, starting in Fall/Autumn and culminating in a bigger event, presumably The International, in Summer. The first is scheduled for this Fall/Autumn, and Valve say they'll reveal more details as that draws nearer.

Next week, Dota 2 will receive a "major balance update", along with this year's version of The International Compendium.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.