Team Dignitas Dota 2 journalist "gso" made his way over to Bellevue, Washington for a tour of the offices of Valve Corporation. Recently, Valve loosened up on the secrecy surrounding Dota 2, allowing for the tours of their facilities to become more in-depth, with visitors able to enter the Dota 2 development area and even take pictures. For this tour, gso provided some close-up images of concept art for some upcoming heroes, which, until now, have never been shown in this level of clarity.

The images gso captured were of a compilation of heroes that were conceptualized in a previous form, as well as upcoming ones that have yet to be released. The previous forms included Lanaya, Lich, Magnus, Lycanthrope, Tidehunter and Pudge. Some upcoming designs included Medusa, Mortred, Rubick, Siren, Troll Warlord, Undying, Jakiro, Nyx Assassin, Centaur Warchief and Gyrocopter. At least a portion of these designs have been under development for an extended period of time, as a previous tour provided to SK Gaming last May featured exposed artwork for Mortred elsewhere in the facility.


Alongside the hero concepts, some other early concepts were provided, including pre-alpha designs for Radiant and Dire creeps. In the upcoming patches, were will be some additional content released, as hinted by some uncovered files in the Dota 2 client. Amongst these implementations will be a new mechanical courier resembling a bug, with its upper body comprised of a bag. Valve plans to have the majority of the unreleased heroes ported to Dota 2 by August, when they will host The International 2012 in their home territory of Seattle, Washington.

Source: joinDOTA, Wykrhm Reddy's Facebook page