As their team levels up, they gain access to better gear as opposed to purchasing items in the game and upgrading them. they can put three A Grade items into their Team Level A slot, which are the weakest items, but couldn’t put F Grade gear, the strongest items, into the Team Level A slots). For each Team Level, they have three different items they can equip (e.g. The Loadout comprises the players’ customised items and gear they are able to take into battle.

This way, the entire team periodically levels up, proving every team member with access to their next Loadout tier. One aspect we particularly liked was the Team Levels, allowing the team as a whole to benefit from each success they have, be it killing a player, destroying turrets or a variety of actions. Giving a pretty cool impression from the outline, the ten available Sentinels fall into three different roles (Tank, Attack and Support), thus proving the typical Trinity for combat.

Our reading about the game prior to our play test revealed that they seemingly revolve around upgrading drones.Ĭombat seemed relatively balanced and, in all honesty, as a relative newbie to the genre and the game itself, we actually didn’t do too bad and got our fair share of kills, which only emphasises how easy Shards of War is to get into. There are additional sub objectives within the map revolving around accessing other control points however, we didn’t really manage to find out what they were about. All of this pretty much resembles other MOBA titles, which makes Shards of War feel that familiar and easier to pick up and play.

The map is made of the traditional three lanes, each one being lined with allied as well as enemy turret towers you have to push past in companion of waves of drones. This felt significantly more intuitive to us and was easy to control, which allowed for some run and gun type tactics as we moved and shot at the same time. As you would expect, Striker is a pretty heavy damage dealing fighter capable of throwing grenades, unleashing powerful automatic barrages from his rifle as well as some other clever things.īeing relatively novice to the MOBA genre, we have to give a tip of the hat to the WASD controls which enable players to move their character around while freely aiming with their mouse independently. We fought on the Empire City map (not completely sure whether the three different Shards mentioned are all accessible through the same gameplay mode at this), giving Striker, an attacker role Sentinel, a try. However, our first real match that we recorded for our First Look video was basically the same game due to that fact that Shards of War has only just become accessible, meaning there are no players online by now. Upon entering the game, we were welcomed by the tutorial, essentially a 5v5 battle with some AI bots. Presently in closed beta testing, the MMO will be utterly free-to-play upon release with various premium currency options available. We’ve only just got the opportunity to have a look at Shards of War, BigPoint’s new futuristic twist on the popular MOBA genre which allows players to form teams of five to engage in action-packed, lane-pushing, base-destroying battles. Pros: Modern/ futuristic setting is a breath of fresh air great graphics and effects combat more fluid and accessible for those unfamiliar with the genre thanks to easy to control characters.Ĭons: Besides WASD movement and Loadout system, the actual combat game play isn’t massively different to other MOBAs.

Shards of war tactics