Dota 2 patch 7.41 came out on March 24, 2026. Since then Valve has shipped six smaller patches, the latest being 7.41f on September 15, but no big one. The wait now stands at 224 days, while the average gap between the last ten big patches is 149 days.
An estimate based on past release history gives 7.42 a 64% chance of landing in November and 28% in December, 92% in total. This is a statistical estimate, not a date from Valve. The longest wait so far was 240 days, before patch 7.33 in April 2023. If 7.42 is not out by November 19, it will become the longest wait since 2023.
The contents of the patch are not known, but past patterns point to wide-ranging changes: 7.41 changed 126 heroes and 125 items, and the last five big patches each changed between 100 and 126 heroes. On September 11 Valve updated the staging server and test client, which some players read as a 7.42 test, but the smaller 7.41f came out four days later. Two new map files, dota_mid and dota_keen, also appeared earlier in the game files.
In the current pro meta Hoodwink leads the picks with 51, while Bounty Hunter has been banned 75 times. Heroes picked or banned in almost every pro game are usually the first to be changed.
A new hero is also possible: six of the last 12 new heroes arrived on the same day as a big patch. The newest hero, Largo, came with patch 7.40 on December 15, 2025, 323 days ago, while the average gap between new heroes is 274 days. Arjun is mentioned as a possible name, with traces found in the game files, but this is unconfirmed.