Valve Release a Hint About the Battle Pass Summer Event

Dota 2 summer event 2020
Image credit: Valve Corporation

The Dota 2 2020 Battle Pass has been a huge success, but there’s one thing still missing – The Summer Event. Valve hinted that it’s supposedly coming soon.

Just the other day, Dota 2 fans got a brand-new addition to the game with the release of theDisciple’s Path. The persona for Anti-Mage completely changes the hero’s model, voice lines, attack, and spell animations. Opinions on it were mixed as in some ways it was an improvement over the previous persona and in others, it was a step back.

This year’s Battle Pass offers a total of three arcanas, two of which have already been released – The One True King and The Eminence of Ristul. The one remaining will probably be saved for last as it also requires the highest level Battle Pass. Besides the Anti-Mage persona, there’s another one coming for Pudge with the Toy Butcher. The latter is also set for release somewhere in the next two months (end date for the pass is September 19).So what’s missing? That’s right the Summer Event. Seeing how we’re already almost a month deep in the summer of 2020, it’s a bit weird that Valve haven’t released it yet. Many players are hoping it’ll be the source of some extra levels on their Battle Pass and that should be generally true. Even guilds have an extra perk at level 14 which grants you extra points earned for playing the event. When is the event coming though?

Valve were kind enough to give players a subtle hint.

First and foremost who or what’s a Grunch? Will it be a monster coming with the new event? A new hero? Something to do with the game’s lore? We don’t know yet, but we’ll certainly find out in the next few weeks (could be even much sooner than that).

The hint we wanted to mention is related to the latest update, which was around 230 MB and changed almost nothing. Almost. The icon for Aghanim’s Scepter was updated and now it also glows. Woah! There’s one more thing, the gate on the art for the Summer Event is bears a similarity to something else we’ve seen before in Artifact.

Aghanims sanctum
Image credit: Valve Corporation

We highly doubt that the icon and visual effect for the item were a mere coincidence. Chances are the event will have something to do with Aghanim, who’s also Rubick’s father. Looking at the Dota 2 gamepedia we get the following information (with a direct copy-paste of the text):

Aghanim was a mighty wizard whose abilities approached that of a demi-god. He owned the legendary Aghanim's Scepter (2020 Summer Event) icon.png Aghanim's Scepter. Although he was exceedingly powerful during his lifetime, he declined later in life and had become a has-been by the time of his death. The circumstances of his death are unclear, with conflicting stories passing around as rumors.

The icon for the item is literally called “(2020 Summer Event) icon.png”. In other words, Aghanim or his scepter will have something to do with the upcoming event. Furthermore, according to the quote above, the circumstances of his death are unclear, which might mean Aghanim could be alive and kicking for the summer of 2020. The other quote from Grunch also mentions dimensions, which opens up a wide area of possibilities as many of the in-game heroes can be tied into that.What do you think? How exactly will Valve connect the story? Would it be all about Aghanim and Rubick or maybe another RPG driven story like Siltbreaker, but shorter? Share your opinion on our Facebook page.

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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...