Valve's Dota 2 will be officially shown to the public for the first time at this month's Gamescom convention in Cologne, Germany—the same location that will host the game maker's first Dota 2 tournament featuring a million dollar prize.
That's right. One. Million. Dollars.
"The International" tournament will pit 16 of the world's top Dota teams against each other in a double elimination playoff competition planned to run alongside the five-day-long Gamescom trade show. The winning team will walk away with a cool million bucks. Dota fans who can't attend Gamescom can watch the tournament online in Chinese, German, Russian, and English languages free of charge.
Valve also offers an update on the release of Dota 2, which it says will be available on the PC and Mac via Steam "later this year."
Valve's Dota 2 is a somewhat controversial sequel (of sorts) to the Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients, a breed of real-time strategy game that requires players to channel and protect herds of computer-controlled minions as they attack an opposing force. Dota 2 development is being led by "IceFrog," one of the developers of the widely played Defense of the Ancients.
Kotaku will be at Gamescom 2011, which runs August 17 to 21, covering all things Dota 2 and beyond.
You can contact Michael McWhertor, the author of this post, at mike@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.