Our 2nd day at Gamescom was crowned with an appointment with the guys of Crytek, who granted us the opportunity to have a look at their latest MOBA title Arena of Fate. In fact, they don’t call it a MOBA, but it pretty much is one, as the title resembles many other presently existing MMOs. It fits the genre very well but tries to do things a bit different by adding its own twists to the features without going too far off the common gameplay path.
Honestly, this was the impression we gathered from all the new MOBAs we discovered at this year’s Gamescom. Every single one is trying hard to appear different while still wanting to be familiar to the audience at the same time, which isn’t meant as criticism, as those who truly love the MOBA genre will undoubtedly claim that, indeed, they’re all different (just like LoL and DotA 2 are different).
The game’s concept is set in the future where, for whatever reason, characters from mythology, lore, history, and popular fiction have been brought (back) to life in order to rescue humankind in an ostentatious celebrity death match. The Crytek team acknowledged that the lore isn’t precisely essential, and that the story is open for changes as they begin public testing. However, for those who love a little bit of fluff behind their characters it will still be there. The available characters range from Robin Hood and King Arthur to Little Red Riding Hood, Baron von Münchhausen, Nikola Tesla and more. At release, we may expect a cast of 30 characters, each of which will have its own style, skills and biographical fluff setting them apart from each other.
When it came to how they made decisions which characters to draw from, the process was rather about taking typical classes fans would expect in this kind of arena game and then deciding for a popular character that would fit into. Some decisions were pretty simple, e.g. choosing Robin Hood as the most legendary of them all for the Archer class, whereas with other characters they put their own twist on them. Little Red Riding Hood, for instance, was the result of what happened after her encounter with the wolf; she now is a skilled wolf hunter equipped with a formidable sword with a wolf’s tail attached to the hilt, which is fittingly called "Big Bad Wolf".
In regards to the game as such, the devs have taken many of the traditional MOBA features and added their own twist to their design, or taken aspects that they thought didn’t work in other games and modified them. Arena of Fate matches, for example, last 20 minutes during which gamers still earn points by killing characters, dropping towers, etc. so that in case they are unable to obliterate the opponent base, there will still be a victor.
The only map itself differs as it consists of 2 "proper" lanes linking both bases and an additional "soft" lane not linking them but having its own unique tower which, if controlled by a team, will weaken the enemy towers, thus providing an alternative objective in the battle.
Instead of items, players are able to "purchase" traits, which can be enhanced when levelling up, basically resulting in a system which keeps players on the field instead of forcing them to continuously head back to their base. Since the period of time a single match takes is limited, the team does without level cap, this way offering a nice secondary task to players who will most definitely try to reach the highest level possible in a match.
Players will have different options to heal themselves up; either actively using a cooldown skill or more passively simply being in their own territory, meaning that their health will replenish as long as they stay within the range of a friendly tower. This again removes the necessity of carrying on teleporting back into the base but keeps players on the field, allowing them to spend the entire 20 minutes of the match fighting.
Regardless of the character they opt for, players will still be able to determine their own role in the game, from the Sieger who capable of easily absorbing damage from towers to the Breaker who becomes a classic tank. This way, players are granted the opportunity to stick with their favourite type of character and use their skills while focusing on a role that best suits their preferred play style. This ultimately offers many more tactical choices in regards to how teams are put together due to the abundance of available class/ role hybrids.
As Crytek is the company behind the title, it’s safe to say Arena of Fate looked amazing when we got to give a try. For a game that has only just been announced and is still in (internal) Alpha testing, it already is well polished and also plays really nicely. Even for someone who hasn’t played a lot of MOBAs, it was fairly easy to get into, thus very newbie friendly, and we managed to grab a kill or two against the opponent newbies (the AI was much harder to kill and Little Red Riding Hood had a knack of teleporting away every time we were going to get a killing blow).
Arena of Fate won’t be groundbreaking, but definitely appeal a huge amount of players thanks to its great polish and quirky theme. The battles are pretty intensive and tremendously fast-paced, the in-field healing resulting in a pretty constant pace and the only breather you get is when you die!
Public alpha testing is scheduled to begin pretty soon with invite only phase focusing on the technical aspects as well as on the ranking system. As of yet, nothing has been confirmed concerning closed or open beta phases.
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