At Gamescom this year we got the chance to head over to play Paladins on the show floor, greeted by a pretty big display our press meeting allowed us to skip the pretty large queues and jump straight to the front to try out the newest first person Shooter. There’s a lot of confusion about whether the game is a “Shooter MOBA”, given that a lot of other games are throwing that title about, this isn’t really something that Hi-Rez has tried to apply to Paladins, but a lot of other outlets are trying to attach; it is a “shooter with progression elements”.

So what does this mean? Essentially players head into the game with an assembled deck of cards that they use to customize their character, each of which has two standard attack abilities and a third movement ability. However, as players progress in the game they are able to level up and choose one of three cards from their deck that appear on the screen, enabling them to customize their loadout as the game progresses based on their team composition or how they are performing in the battle.

The in game progression combined with a “Siege” game mode revolving around minion wave pushing, as well as their previous game Smite (a title third person MOBA) it’s easy to see where the confusion has arisen. However, at the show we got the chance to play their main game mode which most definitely had more of the Shooter feel. In it the objective was to try and destroy, or gain access to, the enemies vault situation within their fortress-like base. Whilst trying to head into the base and take it out manually may be an option, it’s not ideal, and instead players will be fighting over two control points that spawn alternately that, if captured, will spawn a siege canon that will amble its way to the enemy base and make light work of their gates and vault doors if escorted and defended.

The two capture points are in completely different locations flanking either side of the map, and the environment surrounding them opens up for a completely different fight. The first capture point is in the middle of a town square, all around are built up buildings, small streets, different levels that overlook the town square and give a vantage point to anyone trying to capture it. The second capture point is located in an open bowl shaped canyon, with slightly rising sides all around it, players in the middle and on the capture point are extremely vulnerable and out in the open. The points are capture by a team standing on them as they tick up to 100, even if they get pushed off the point they won’t lose their progression, and so the fights remain frantic and at times desperate.

In our experience the pace of the game was extremely fast, in the actual firefights there were explosions, lasers, flying robot characters and more lighting up the area in an explosion of colour that really does have a Team Fortress 2 feel about it. One of the great, and rarely seen in shooters, implementations were players mounts; able to summon them in an instance players could get from place to place or back into the action after they had died meaning the developers could create a large map without the worry of long travel times for players to get back into the game.

Our own experience was actually very positive, the game is very fun and the character that we were automatically allocated was fun and easy to use, a squirrel type gunner that shoots bombs at the enemy meant we were getting some insane range and really practicing our arc trajectory to land some beautiful kills. The talent progression was simple enough, though as we didn’t know what our deck was beforehand there was no way to make a build around it and so out of the three choices each time (strength, defense or utility) we just pumped everything into strength and went into beast mode. Teamwork is definitely important in the game, more so than a lot of other shooters where even solo characters can generally perform pretty well; as everyone relies on each other’s skills and abilities it means the group that stays together wins together. Fortunately for us we were on one such team and even after a rocky start where the enemy picked up the first two cannons, we were still able to come back with some pretty amazing defensive play that brought us right back into the game to seal the win.

The game is fun and fast paced and we can’t wait until we get the chance to play their second game mode; unfortunately the game is currently in early Alpha Access, though it does seem very polished, Hi-Rez are aiming for a 2016 release on both PCs and Consoles.

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