Dota: Dragon's Blood Anime Releasing March 25 On Netflix

Streaming giant Netflix and gaming giant Valve have surprised the internet with the announcement of a new animated series based on the Dota game franchise. The companies each took to their Twitter accounts to announce the series, with a release date of March 25.

Both tweets refer to the series as "anime." Some anime fans may wind up debating that classification--hard to tell, though, since we currently know nothing about who's actually making the show. Netflix simply posted a teaser video in which a man identifies himself as Davion, Dragon Knight, a character from the game Dota 2. He then battles a dragon, before the logo Dota: Dragon's Blood appears. The teaser says the series was made "in collaboration with Valve." Meanwhile, Valve said in a tweet from the official Dota 2 account, "We're excited to announce a brand-new anime series exploring the Dota universe like never before. As fellow fans of Dota and its passionate global community, we look forward to sharing this new adventure with you when it premieres on Netflix March 25."

Finally, Netflix's official listing for the show describes its premise in brief: "After encounters with a dragon and a princess on her own mission, a Dragon Knight becomes embroiled in events larger than he could have ever imagined."

Dota began life as a player-made mod for the game Warcraft III and is credited as the origin of the MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) genre that also includes League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm, among others. Valve partnered with the original creator of Dota to develop and release Dota 2 in 2013, and the genre has been going strong ever since.

The streaming series Dota: Dragon's Blood looks similar to other animated video game adaptations Netflix has produced recently, including the Castlevania series and last year's Dragon's Dogma series. However, it's unknown at this time whether these shows are related in any way.