June 20, 2015 by Paul Curtin
Directly after getting our hands on 2K and Gearbox’s highly impressive upcoming multiplayer online battle arena, Battleborn, we got to also check out Motiga and Microsoft’s similar new exclusive cross-platform MOBA, Gigantic.
From the very start of diving into Gigantic, it instantly became clear that gameplay is fast… really fast, especially when comparing it to Battleborn and other MOBAs. Motiga is describing the game as a “free-to-play shooter MOBA,” and there’s no question that it plays like a mix of the best of both genres with a hectic arena shooter vibe similar to what Blizzard is going for with Overwatch.
Like other MOBAs, Gigantic pits two teams of five players against each other in a single map with the goal of each team pushing into the enemy’s base and destroying the objective. Said objective in Gigantic, however, isn’t just a base or ancient tree rooted in the ground and is rather a gigantic guardian (hence the name) that can move around the map with the goal of also destroying the opposing team’s guardian.
In order to mount a push, each team’s kills go towards powering up their guardian and setting it on a rampage where it attacks the other team’s guardian, dropping it to the ground, and allowing the wounded enemy guardian to be potentially killed by the attacking team by landing attacks on its exposed heart.
Of course, no good MOBA is without a massive roster of unique playable characters, and Gigantic will be launching with 16 heroes to choose from. We got our hands on The Margrave tank, who had the ability to pounce into battle, deflect incoming ranged attacks, and ground and pound enemies. We also had another MediaStinger team member playing the divine healer, Vadasi, to create an unstoppable Tank/Healer combo and give the enemy team the beatdown.
With how fast-paced gameplay is, it was a little difficult for the healer to keep up with the tank and his dash ability, but surely this won’t be an issue as Motiga continues to tweak the game and as players begin to learn how to work better together as a team. There is also no item-building to slow the game down or confuse new players, and the skill upgrading system was well designed for console controls. That being said, the process of selecting and upgrading new abilities still took a few seconds to get the hang of and understand – which wasn’t always easy to do when leveling up in the middle of battles where you couldn’t afford to stop for a second and add a new skill point.
With the MOBA genre exploding on the PC market but most failing on consoles, Gigantic is looking to capture both markets by brilliantly adding cross-platform play between PC and Microsoft’s Xbox One. As mentioned above, Gigantic’s combat is very fast-paced, and matches on average only last around 15 minutes – which should keep the attention of new gamers when compared to games like Dota 2 and League of Legends, where battles can last well over an hour.
Motiga is also looking to capture the interest of gamers of all ages with a bright and colorful art direction similar to the current most popular MOBA, League of Legends. With interesting new characters, giant monster battles, and a shooter-inspired faster pace that doesn’t follow the traditional top-down perspective of other MOBAs, Gigantic could be one of the hottest new MOBAs on the market when the beta starts in August and the full game launches sometime later this year for PC and Xbox One.
