Modder reimagines Dota as a third-person shooter

A new mod will put Dota 2 players into the trenches, rather than viewing their battles from above.

YouTuber BMD Dota is working on Action Dota, a mod that changes the multiplayer battle arena from a top-down, real-time strategy game into a third-person shooter. The proof-of-concept video is taken from a very early version of the mod, that required stripping away large portions of Dota to create the mod’s foundation.

“This is done as a Dota 2 mod using the Source 2 Dota 2 engine,” BMD writes in the Reddit thread discussing his new mod, “but I did completely blow away and recreate my own keyboard/mouse control system instead of using the built-in Dota controls. I created my own system of motion that allows me [to do] things like have characters jump and strafe, and turn at an infinite rate. In fact, no unit orders are given at all in the game, nor are any hero abilities or items used.”

BMD also used his collision library software, which he demo’ed on YouTube in August 2014, to create Action Dota. “I always release the systems I create as libraries so that other modders can use them,” BMD writes in the Reddit thread, “though I haven’t done that quite yet for this third-person shooter stuff due to some issues I’m still working on resolving.”

Every player in Action Dota has to use the third-person camera and WASD movement keys to play the mod. This prevents anyone from using the traditional, top-down perspective and gaining a competitive advantage.

“I’d love to build in more content, mechanics, and functionality before doing any official release,” writes BMD, “but the primary reason I can’t put anything out right now is that there are two major issues with the game that make it very unfriendly to normal players. These are related to camera handling and are not something I can solve on my own, so I put in a request to Valve to hopefully address them soon.”

The idea of combining MOBAs with third-person shooters is also the basis for Smite, developed by Hi-Rez Studios. Battleborn, from Gearbox Software, combines MOBAs with first person-shooters.

Screengrab via BMD Dota/YouTube