DOTA: Dragon’s Blood season 3 announced

The third season of Studio Mir’s DOTA: Dragon’s Blood is set to air this summer! The South Korean animation studio has announced that the Netflix anime based on Dota 2 will start on August 11. 

With this announcement, Studio Mir and Netflix have ended the rumours and confirmed the success of the first two seasons. And this is great news for the entire Dota 2 community.

The link between Dota 2 and DOTA: Dragon’s Blood

Because it is based on Dota 2’s lore, DOTA: Dragon’s Blood features multiple characters from this universe, such as Invoker, Mirana, and Terrorblade. The action is centred around the Dragon Knight Davion, who, in the game, is a strength-based hero who can transform himself into a dragon.

According to the lore, this hero gained his great wisdom and power while fulfilling Slyrak’s request to die of his blade. Davion agreed to kill him but during the battle, he suffered a wound of his own and the blood of the two mingled. This resulted in Davion’s transformation into Dragon Knight.

Just like DOTA: Dragon’s Blood is based on Dota 2, one of Dota 2’s heroes — Marci — is based on the anime and was not part of the game when the Netflix series began. Marci was presented as Mirana’s companion and the game adopted her together with this lore. Not much else is known about this character, which is a bit unusual for the Dota 2 universe.

DOTA: Dragon’s Blood Reception

The anime was well-received, both by anime fans and Dota 2 fans. On IMDb, its score is 7.8, while on Metacritic it’s even higher: 8.3. So far, its highest-rated episodes have been A Game of Chess from Season 1 (8.6) and Unreal City from Season 2 (8.7). By comparison, Naruto’s score is 8.4.

Watching DOTA: Dragon’s Blood can significantly really help viewers learn about the game and the lore of its characters. And while the anime is still fun to watch even without having knowledge of Dota 2’s universe, it’s a lot more interesting when for those familiar with the characters. For a player who’s played 1000 games with Invoker, the anime will likely feel very authentic and well-written.

How has the Dota 2 community benefited from DOTA: Dragon’s Blood

Because many gamers are anime fans and vice versa, Dota 2 gained a significant number of new players thanks to Netflix’s show. This helped reverse a dangerous trend that caused many to think that the game would die in just several years.

Based on Steam’s statistics, the current number of average concurrent players is around 450,000. This means that Dota 2 is almost as popular as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, despite being a lot harder to learn.

Header photo: Netflix| DOTA: Dragon’s Blood