Dota: Dragons Blood on Netflix fails to show what makes Dota 2 special

Competitive games like Magic: The Gathering and League of Legends are absolutely dripping with lore. While they might not tell a story in the traditional sense, they have surprisingly robust fantasy worlds. Usually, you can only catch this in brief snippets through flavor text or character bios. But increasingly, game studios are attempting to build on these fictional worlds through more traditional storytelling, whether it’s comics, short stories, or TV shows.

The latest example is Dota: Dragon’s Blood on Netflix, which fleshes out the world of Valve’s long-running Dota 2 via an eight-episode anime. The good news is that it’s a fun, albeit brief, fantasy romp you can enjoy even if you haven’t played the game. The bad news is that it...

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