One of the most popular and rapidly growing genre of games, particularly in the f2p industry, is the MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena), owing a lot of its successes to two mammoth titles: DOTA 2 and League of Legends. Whilst neither are the first MOBA games to be released the explosive success of League of Legends really brought a lot of attention to the MOBA genre launching at a time where both the free to play market was beginning to gain traction and the e-sports scene was really starting to stand up and get noticed. The question of just exactly what is a MOBA is debated by many and generally comes down to how literal you try to take the acronym, when used broadly it can include a wide selection of games that seem like they’d fit in multiple genres (as this article will show) but for the hardcore MOBA fans then there’s some key elements that generally need to be in place to really fit the description, what other people may term as “lane MOBAs”.
So what is a “lane MOBA”? Essentially it is a team based PVP match, typically five players on a team, with a map that is divided up into usually three “lanes”, direct paths that link both the teams and the oppositions’ base. The aim of the game is to fight past various defenses, usually in the form of turrets and waves of AI npc minions that line the lanes, and destroy the enemies’ core/nexus/commander/guardian/whatever; a structure or character that must be eliminated. Players get to choose from various characters, each of which have different skills and fulfil different roles for the team and they generally only have a handful of abilities but can improve them through the duration of the battle. That, in a nutshell, is what we consider to be a true MOBA.
The likes of DOTA 2 and League of Legends very much fall into this camp, ticking all the boxes there are in fact very few major things that differentiate these two from each other, at least from a lay persons perspective as someone who isn’t overly familiar with MOBA. The nuances and mechanics changed between the two are subtle owing more to the rate at which you might level, or acquire in game gold to get weapon upgrades, or the frequency and length of team fights, but for MOBA lovers these changed are enough to generally put players into one camp or the other and they are similar enough that it’s not really worth playing both of them. That said, League of Legends is considerably more popular than DOTA 2 with DOTA 2 hitting a milestone of over 1million players logged in at the same time, a shadow in comparison to LoL which boasts seven times that number with 7.5million. With numbers like these it’s easy to see why more MOBA are constantly popping up.
So how do you get your MOBA noticed? Well the folks over at Hi-Rez Studios went with camera angles, whilst the vast majority of MOBA focus on a top down isometric camera angle Hi-Rez focused on taking the game into a third person action view with their battle of the gods in SMITE. Still following the same traditional lane MOBA mechanics SMITE was the first MOBA to really try and push the third person perspective and subsequently has really given then a more unique place in the genre. Another element we’re seeing is the rise of the more casual/quicker gameplay MOBA, where games in DOTA2 and LoL can typically float around the 40minute mark there is a big outcry for shorter game lengths and this is where Heroes of the Storm has rightfully stepped in.
Heroes of the Storm (HOTS) once more takes a lane MOBA approach, however, with some subtle changes such as removing an early game grind that DOTA2 and LoL have players fight against each other very early on. Combined with this are the inclusion of map objectives, each map in the game (and it should be mentioned that having a wide selection of maps is also something pretty novel to the MOBA market) has its own unique objective that teams will have to focus on to win the game. These objectives still revolve around destroying the enemies core within their base, but has different ways of doing it, in one game you might be collecting coins to turn in to a ghost pirate captain at the centre of the map so that he starts launching cannons at the enemy defenses making it easier to push, or your team may find themselves battle over capture points to try and activate a dragon shrine and turn a player into a tower destroying fire breathing force to be reckoned with. One of the other big things that HOTS has going for it is that it is developed and published by Blizzard and uses the Diablo, Warcraft and other Blizzard franchise IPs for the primary characters and themes within the game; it is a fanbois Blizzard smorgasbord.
Away from the big titles there’s plenty of up and comers or MOBA that have been around for a while that are doing pretty well for themselves, each striving in its own way to be a little different and separate itself from the bigger titles knowing they can’t compete with imitation. Some “MOBA” go so far to be different that, in our opinion, they stop being MOBA altogether.
The third person view factor is possibly one of the most noticeable differences that can really give an MMO a little more attention, we see new games like King of Wushu coming onto the scene which combine classic beat ‘em up “wuxia” style combat (running up walls, jumping along trees, that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon style martial arts) but the developers have made the interesting choice of launching it first and foremost on the PS4 exclusively for a time, and ticks a lot of boxes when it comes to being a lane pushing style MOBA. Orcs Must Die! Unchained is a little different, another third person lane pusher, fighting past Guardians instead of turret towers the game offers a more obvious balancing between defensive and offensive gameplay with players choosing which minions they wish to enter their waves when lane pushing but also laying down their own traps in a primary kill box area. Though not a third person MOBA the futuristic sci-fi Supernova also puts an emphasis on controlling your minions, a much larger focus in fact where it adds a completely new metagame requiring splitting your time between pushing with your hero, fighting and also monitoring your wave units and comparing their fight stats to see how well they are doing against rival waves they are fighting in lane.
Being a sci-fi game adds another somewhat unique element, the biggest MOBA games right now still focus on the fantasy element, similarly with MMORPGs that fantasy seems to be the general go to in terms of popularity. Other games trying to follow suit with the futuristic theme are games like Shards of War that, other than the theme and a few twists and tweaks here and there, is extremely similar to a lot of the more successful lane MOBA and stays true to the genre. Games of Glory is a futuristic bloodsport type theme that retains the lane pushing core destroying objective but heavily incorporates a point capture system where teams must lockdown three points in order to lower the enemies’ defenses to get temporary access to the core structure.
The Point Capture element is an aspect of MOBA that is becoming more common and it is here that, personally, we believe the lines start to get blurred. Games such as Infinite Crisis, the DC Universe MOBA where you can play as Batman, Green Lantern, The Joker, etc., has a similar point capture element but also has jungles (picking up neutral camps to help you in battle) but incorporates a Heroes of the Storm style map objective to add a little extra oomph, though not being as much a primary focus as HOTS. However, we'll have to forget about it, since it's shuting down next month. Some MOBAS lacks the lane feature, but they undeniably a battle arena style setup, but it goes to show how blurry the lines start becoming between MOBA and other genres.
Take another urban themed point capture MOBA Cronix Online, the game is a closed off map based setting, consisting of point capture such as other MOBA and similarly is a third person viewpoint, the question is where does MOBA end and simply making a game consisting of a very specific popular FPS game mode (Point Capture) begin? One of the newer MOBAs that will soon be launching is Gigantic, fantasy themed it is once more a third person point capture meets map control game, though has the added feature of both teams working to build up the strength of your teams enormous summoned creature that will ultimately fight alongside you in a final showdown, the game advertises itself as a MOBA but again it’s a far cry from the traditional. Similarly with the new Total War: Arena, the Moba version of the popular Total War franchise sees players controlling three unit squads as opposed to an entire army as in the single player and instead fighting in a 10 v 10 battle; in the literal sense the game is most definitely a massively online battle arena game, but when looking for alternates it’s questionable for many whether such a game should have the title.
When looking for options and where we probably see the most unexpected leap from the genre we take a look at two new games; R.O.H.A.N. 2 and Heroes of Rune. Both games are essentially standard MMORPG, but Heroes of the Rune allows players to use their characters in a MOBA game at the login, completely separate from the main game. On the other hand with R.O.H.A.N. 2 the MOBA gameplay is actually taking the place of the classic endgame instance based battleground PVP, instead having players fight in a lane pushing, allied minion defending, turret destroying push into the enemy base to destroy an AI commander.
When it comes to MOBA there really is something for everyone, this list alone shows a great variation of the types of MOBA you can expect to find out there, but whether they all deserve the MOBA title… well… we’ll let you be the judge of that and you can let us know below or flag up any other MOBA we might have missed out!
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