The official Arcade servers went down, so we kept the game going ourselves. You get one small client with free lobbies, smart bots in every empty seat, and a shared ladder. If the host drops, the game carries on.
There's no port forwarding, no VPN and no GameRanger to set up. The client handles all of that for you. Need more detail? Read the full guide.
Subscribe to Ability Arena in the Steam Workshop, then start Dota once so it downloads.
Open AbilityArenaClient.exe. It finds your Steam name and installs the community patch.
Create a lobby or click Join on an open one. Bots fill every free seat, and friends take their place as they join.
Dota launches and connects by itself. If the host drops, someone else takes over and the game resumes from the last round.
Everything runs on our small community server. Your game files stay yours: we only ship a handful of patch files on top of the official workshop version.
Seven named bots with their own personalities. They draft by role, chase proven combos, learn from every game and talk trash.
Your game is saved every round. If the host disconnects, the player with the best connection takes over and the game resumes.
Game traffic goes through our relay in Frankfurt. Nobody needs to open ports or share their IP.
Everyone starts at Archon and earns placement points to climb towards the bots at the top.
See which spells, combos, heroes, lineups, gods and positions win, across every game played.
Community chat, a message board for finding games, and news, all inside the client.
| # | Player | Medal | Rating | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loading… | ||||
There are no ads, no accounts to buy and no paywall. The relay, the ladder and these pages are paid for by GenesisBox, a small team building a solar-powered computer that keeps working when the internet doesn't.
Yes. The client, the lobbies and the ladder are all free. GenesisBox pays for the server.
They need Dota 2 with the Ability Arena workshop item installed, and the client. The client downloads our patch files and keeps them up to date.
The game is saved on the community server at the start of every round. The client picks a new host from the players still connected, relaunches the game there, and everyone reconnects to continue from that round.
The client only reads your Steam display name and account number from your local Steam folder to show your name in lobbies. It never asks for your password and never logs in to Steam.
Ability Arena is made by Double Edge Studios for Dota 2. This is an unofficial community effort to keep it playable. We distribute only small patch files, and you install the game itself from the official Steam Workshop.