Dungeon Defenders 2 Axes MOBA Mode, Returns to its Roots

Dungeon Defenders 2 developer Trendy Entertainment attempted to take the game in a new direction, away from its cooperative tower defense mode that the first title in the series was renown for.

Earlier this year, Trendy Entertainment was subject to a Kotaku article which called it the "video game studio from hell" where employees were forced to work in a toxic environment wherein Trendy president Jeremy Stieglitz subjected them to his ideas of what Dungeon Defenders 2 should be—a rip-off of League of Legends and other, more popular video games. 

Today, the studio has announced via press release that the company will, for a fact, be dropping its much maligned MOBA mode and focus on its strengths as a tower defense game.

“We’ve been listening very closely to our community, getting feedback from fans of the first game on what they want to see in a sequel, and we realized we needed a shift in our development focus,” said Philip Asher, Marketing Director at Trendy Entertainment. 

“We had strayed from making the kind of game fans wanted and the kind of game we wanted to develop. So, we’ve nixed the MOBA-style of gameplay and other ‘extra’ features we were talking about and instead are making the sequel we all want to play. We’re improving everything we loved about Dungeon Defenders, one step at a time. First we’re going through the core gameplay experience; injecting more meaningful decisions and moments into the minute to minute gameplay that you’ll want to share with your friends. Then, in late October we’re going to kick off our first major community initiative to get fans involved in the development of the game, and start working with them to make the roleplaying and item systems as satisfying as possible.”

Dungeon Defenders 2 will be out next spring as a free-to-play title for the PC, Mac and Linux.