The Side Shop removed from the Dota 2 Battle Pass

The sideshop
Image credit: Valve Corporation

The Side Shop, one of the features in this year’s Dota 2 Battle, is already a thing of the past. It took Valve less than two weeks to remove it.This year’s Dota 2 Battle Pass was released on May 25 and it brought a variety of new features along with some old ones we all love. The Side Shop was one of the newly added mini-games where players collected heroes just like in Auto Chess/Underlords. At any time the heroes in question could be traded for an in-game currency which determined the rewards you receive upon opening a side shop chest. Not a lot of players liked the idea behind the Side Shop and some even called it “a casino within a casino”. The gold used to purchase heroes in the Shop was limited and there were only limited ways to get more. One of those was by recycling unwanted items from this year’s treasures. This is where fans further criticized Valve, as in previous editions recycling of Immortal items led to either getting extra levels on your Pass or progress towards another chest.

It didn’t take much convincing and Valve followed the player demand. Today the Side Shop was removed and that makes it the shortest every feature of any Battle Pass we’ve seen. Here’s the official statement:

In this update we are rolling back two features to be like they were last year: Weekly Wagering & Recycling/Sideshop.The amount of weekly battle points available from wagering is now the same as last year.Sithil and Quirt’s reimagined Sideshop has been shut down. Immortals can now be recycled using the same system as last year. For players that have already recycled immortals, the system will automatically back fill your progress on this replaced system and grant you additional immortal treasures as appropriate. Any rewards previously earned through the Sideshop will remain in player inventories, and if you still have gold and wish to continue rolling in the Sideshop, you can use the dota_show_sideshop command.As part of this update we are also removing ticketing requirements for the Gauntlet.

Besides the side shop, wagering returns to the way it was last year and the Gauntlet no longer requires tickets. Both are acceptable changes and hardly anyone will be unhappy with that. Recycling 4 Immortal items will grant you another treasure as well as a Rylai’s wheel spin. Valve have been more responsive than ever in 2020 and we can only hope that they’ll continue the trend.

Stay tuned for more Dota 2 news and check out EarlyGame for more content.

Tasho Tashev

Law graduate from Sofia University turned gaming journalist. Gaming has always been a passion of mine since I was a kid (shocker I know) so it was only a matter of time before I started writing about it. My high-school...