Dota 2 Dark Carnival kicks off with a full story campaign and five new automaton personas

Dota 2's Dark Carnival event is live. Valve's latest major event follows the format of 2024's Crownfall — a full story campaign with voice acting, a tie-in comic, and a sprawling progression system built around actually playing the game.

The first chapter, Midnight Run, follows Legion Commander and Hoodwink trapped aboard a spider-legged circus train run by the Ringmaster. Players work their way from the rear of the train toward the front, unlocking rooms in each carriage by spending tickets earned through matches. The hero you pick determines which three ticket types you get — win a standard match and you collect all three, lose and you get one at random, while Turbo mode gives two on a win and nothing on a loss. A trade system lets you swap three matching spares or four different tickets to chase the ones you actually need. Along the way you earn Discount Coins, Candy, and Treasures of Wonder chests. Ten Discount Coins convert into a real-money discount on Dark Carnival store items — $7.99 in the US, £5.89 in the UK — and if the item costs exactly that amount, it's free. Each Treasures of Wonder chest pulls from a pool of 15 new cosmetic sets, including Drow Ranger's harlequin Motley Marauder, Queen of Pain as Mistress of Ceremonies, Monkey King's Bonobo the Clown, Primal Beast's lion-themed Mane Attraction, Io reimagined as a Madame Scrio crystal ball, and a Fairy Godmummer skin for Dark Willow. Players who don't already own the Toy Pudge persona get it as a bonus when opening chests.

The headline cosmetic additions are five new automaton-themed hero personas for Axe, Oracle, Legion Commander, Morphling, and Bristleback. Each comes with custom animations, visual effects, ability icons, and re-processed voice lines. Persona-level cosmetics in Dota 2 are a tier above standard sets — they effectively replace a hero's entire look, sound, and feel rather than just swapping out individual items. Crownfall set a high bar for event storytelling in Dota 2 last year, and Dark Carnival appears to be matching that ambition with a similarly theatrical premise.

The event is live now and the full cosmetic collection is viewable on the official Dota 2 site. With only the first chapter available at launch, more story content is expected to roll out as the event progresses.