Dota Underlords is Valve's self-developed, standalone Auto Chess game. Everyone who purchased a Dota 2 Battle Pass got into the beta last week. With that early preview period over, Valve has now opened the floodgates for everyone.

Underlords takes the Auto Chess formula and attempts to streamline the experience, making it even easier for new players to jump in. The UI, in particular, is getting a massive facelift that should make the game easier to grok at first glance. Whereas Auto Chess was a Dota 2 mod and had to use what was available, Underlords' interface was built from the ground up with its specific gameplay in mind. It might not sound like a huge change, but in practice it makes everything flow much better.

The big gameplay change Underlords makes is that every round you'll get new items. In other autobattlers, you just have a chance to get items. This change means that you always feel like you have things to do. Plus, the items are, for the most part, more useful than they have been in the past. So, correctly equipping your different heroes will give you an extra leg up on your competition.

For the open beta period, players will have access to both online and offline (against bots) play. The preview build that came out last week did not have ranked matchmaking or cross-play, so the open beta is also adding that. Further, rest assured that any progress you make on one device will carry over to all the others.

If you'd like to jump into the Dota Underlords beta, you can sign up now on Android, iOS, or PC.