Next Dota 2 battle pass, Frostivus event teased by Valve

The long-awaited battle pass is finally headed to Dota 2, and Valve has already left clues on its release date.

Patch 7.34e is finally here, and Valve likely anticipated some disappointment with the tiny letter patch. The developer hopes to make up for it with some hints for future Dota 2 updates, including both the next seasonal event, Frostivus, and the return of new arcanas in a battle pass. Both events will bring an end to the long drought of cosmetic-themed events since the cancellation of the traditional battle pass.

The new information comes from a blog post on the official Dota 2 website. In a short four-paragraph post, Valve explained that this patch is meant to tide players over for bigger updates currently in the works. It confirmed that this year would feature a Frostivus event, which hasn’t been featured in the game since 2019.

The last Frostivus introduced the Ogre Magi arcana with a smaller battle pass, so this year’s version should be similar. Expect the new Frostivus Dota 2 event to arrive sometime in early December 2023.

The one confirmed difference is that this Frostivus will not include an arcana. Valve used the second half of the blog post to talk about other updates, including the upcoming arrival of multiple top-tier cosmetics.

Valve teases big battle pass coming soon after Frostivus

The Dota 2 devs have confirmed that Frostivus will not contain any new arcanas, but a battle pass coming soon after will have everything that fans expect and more. 

Frostivus will be released sometime in December, but after that, Valve is planning to release a bigger event that includes this year’s batch of arcanas. This event is currently unnamed, but it will most likely come out sometime in the first quarter of 2024. Valve claimed that it will likely release “in the next few months” and also stated that the event has “gained a few more moving parts than we initially planned.”

Based on the phrasing, it sounds like Valve will be introducing a new battle pass to help celebrate the release of Ringmaster, the new Dota 2 hero first announced at The International 2023. We predicted he would come out sometime in February, which would line up with Valve’s predicted timeline. As for who will get those coveted arcanas, Lion, Slark, and Riki are the top-played heroes of all time without an arcana, persona, or arcana-esque set. Expect at least one of those heroes to get some love.