You may not know the first thing about competitive Dota 2 concepts like “jungling,” or “creep stacking,” but you’ve probably dealt with illness, heartbreak, or high expectations in some form. Valve pulls at these relatable, human threads in its new documentary, Free to Play , to share a true and understandable story about the burgeoning eSports scene – and the fascinating players at its forefront.

Valve upped the match replays with high-quality renders.

Danil “Dendi” Ishutin. Clinton “Fear” Loomis. Benedict “HyHy” Lim. These three professional Dota 2 players, from Ukraine, the United States, and Singapore, respectively, have wildly different backgrounds. But in 2011, each player had one common goal: to win the first 16-team International Dota 2 tournament and take home the $1 million prize.It would have been simple for Valve to dwell heavily on each player’s pre-tournament training regimen, but Dota 2’s many nuances and complications are wisely avoided. Free to Play instead offers only the most zoomed-out explanation of the game. Two teams of five unique characters face off against each other on a battlefield with many paths and jungles. The goal is to push past the enemy’s defenses and destroy their base. If you can understand that, the great interviews and the passion of the film’s three stars sufficiently fill in any gaps.Fear’s father abandoned his family when he was young. His mother, upset that her son wanted to make a living playing games, grew more discouraged with Loomis’ decisions. HyHy’s family focused only on his studies, and they blamed Dota for his falling grades. The only person Lim was able to connect with – a girlfriend who also played competitive Dota – broke up with him on bad terms. Dendi lost his father, whom he was close with, and he used Dota as an outlet; a way to get back up.Each story unfolds through touching interviews with the players, their families, and their friends. Nothing feels forced or coaxed out, and at many times within each story, I felt like I was seeing unused footage – the stuff I wasn’t supposed to see. Ishutin’s incredible dexterity and skill in Dota 2 have earned him the nickname “Dendi the Superman,” but there was nothing inhuman about the past he and the other players shared.Gluing each sub-story together is a larger plot of the International tournament. Free to Play does a great job of contextualizing the growth of eSports, the success they’ve already seen in countries like Korea and China, and what the massive $1 million International prize meant for eSports’ future. Dota 2 commentators, whose jobs are to break down matches play by play, interviewed for the film and helped make sense of the tournaments and the competing team’s histories.Dota 2 isn’t a bad looking game at all, but for Free to Play, Valve rendered standout moments from the biggest matches with much better animation and detail than the game can achieve. These clips are all about the spectacle, but they do that job well, and they cap off intense team fights with a satisfying bang.Unfortunately, they are used a tad too often without providing proper explanation of what’s happening. For example, big Dota fans know how epic it is for an Enigma player to capture most of an opposing team in a “black hole,” but some might just see a bunch colors and hear the commentator shouting a lot. Hardcore fans will understand what’s happening in these moments, but those less familiar with Dota might just go along with it the same way someone laughs at a joke they don’t understand. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.