We got a chance to sit down with the Game Director over at Crytek whilst at GamesCom, Vesselin Handjiev, to check out their up and coming MOBA Arena of Fate, that said they insist the game isn’t a MOBA and is instead a “team based arena battle”, but as far as we’re concerned if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck… then it’s a duck. The game has a lot of classical MOBA elements but in fairness it does seem to offer quite a few different twists and turns that just might stand it out from the crowd, enough to get noticed in the ever growing MOBA genre where almost every other GamesCom meeting we had this year was another MOBA (or “not a MOBA” but is really a MOBA).

So to start with the game is typically a three lane push with minions into the enemy base, five players on each side that have QWER abilities, in lane talent/skill upgrades, are tasked with destroying towers and have jungle areas to fight Titan camps (yeh.. totally not a MOBA). What the game does differently, and why the developers insist it’s not a MOBA, is quite numerous but primarily focuses on being more team orientated (so removing last hits and gold grabbing) to focus on a team v team battle, as well as having a finite match length of twenty minutes to appease a more casual crowd that don’t like the 40+ minute battles you get with DOTA2 and League of Legends.

The twenty minute time limit is essentially the core feature of the game that everything else is built around, the talent builds, the map layout, the types of classes and most importantly the scoring system. Unlike other MOBA there isn’t a singular way to win by “destroying the core/nexus/whatever you call it” positioned inconveniently in the enemy team’s base, whilst dropping that final tower is still a route to victory what happens if you don’t destroy it before the 20 minute time limit is up? Here is where the scoring comes in, players earn points for destroying towers, for killing 7 players (which earns them one point) and completing jungle camp objectives, at the end of the 20 minutes whoever has the most points wins. What this means is that, whilst Handjiev freely admits that there are a lot of other features from other MOBA they really like, it doesn’t mean they are necessarily compatible with Arena of Fate and so as often as not the team have to focus on their game and sticking to its core principles.

A comparison Handjiev made throughout our interview, and one that is fairly accurate, is that the game plays and looks more like a football game with players working as a team to earn points, but with the various features there’s so many strategies that can be employed to find victory. One thing he did highlight is that it’s practically impossible, unlike a sport, for players to just go totally defensive when they are in the lead and protecting their score, doing so would leave open the other map objectives and can quite easily turn the tide of battle and make a winning team suddenly on the losing end. The constant battle to and fro means that twenty minutes is a constant onslaught of combat, heightened further by being able to heal up at nearby towers and so players are kept in the thick of the fight instead of having to head back to their home base.

Whilst the core gameplay is fundamental to Arena of Fate and no modes will be added, something the current testers seem to be fine with as right now there’s been little to no negative feedback from the game, making Handjiev a “very happy developer”; the game will however have multiple maps. Currently there’s only one that is being playtested, but as the game has just entered closed beta and players lucky enough to play Arena of Fate at GamesCom were given a free closed beta key, they will get the chance to play new maps soon enough. Alongside this are various characters that will be continuously added, all different types of characters from literature, fiction and even historical figures so we can see Rasputin, Nikola Tesla and Joan of Arc teaming up with Robin Hood and Little Red Riding Hood.

At release the game is, of course, going to be a free to play MMO and as far as monetization goes whilst there were no specifics Handjiev did tell us that primarily they wanted to avoid paywalls and pay to win, instead focusing on the types of things players want for fun and social aspects, but don’t need to buy to get ahead. No doubt we’ll see a variety of skins and purchasing of new characters, but at this stage we’re still in the dark though we were told to expect some more information in the following months.

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