During the broadcast of this year's The International tournament, Valve presented a trailer for Muerta, the newest hero coming to its ever-popular multiplayer online battle arena title, Dota 2. The trailer is less than a minute long and doesn't show any gameplay, but it does give us a solid shot of how Muerta looks, as well as going over a bit of her character's theme, that being someone who traverses beyond the afterlife. Finally, it states that Muerta will become available in early 2023.
The skull patterns on Muerta's face and the flowery accessories around her head are a clear visual reference to traditional Mexican holiday Dia de Los Muertos. Her name literally translates to "Dead" (female adjective) in Spanish, so her character theme is only sensible. Dota 2's official Website describes her as "an enduring revenant... with promises of a ruinous reckoning to follow." Further down, a call to action reads, "Pierce the veil between the living and the damned as a new hero — Muerta — arrives to haunt the lanes in early 2023."
What Muerta's gameplay archetype will be can only be guessed at. Since she wields a gun, the initial assumption by some is that she'll be a carry hero, but Dota 2 is known for its impressive character variety, so her direction can really go anywhere the developers want it to. Most fans are quite pleased with her visual design and hope for some Spanish versions of her voiced lines, though some have expressed concern that she'll be delayed further into 2023 due to Dota 2's track record.
Dota 2 is the sequel to the original Defense of the Ancients, which was actually a fan-made custom game mode in 2002's Warcraft III. The custom game was so popular that many owned and played Warcraft III simply to play Dota. It essentially created the MOBA genre, of which there are now numerous immensely popular online titles, such as League of Legends and Pokemon Unite.
The developers eventually wanted to make a living off of their very popular game, and they wanted to be free from the constraints of Warcraft III's custom game engine, so they were picked up by Valve and released Dota 2 in 2013, which quickly became one of the most popular titles within the genre. To get an idea of the game's popularity, The International 11, the recent Dota 2 tournament in which Muerta was revealed, had a prize pool of more than $18 million USD, the large majority of which was collected from in-game Battle Pass sales.