Crytek will be making a move into the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre in the next few months, with their new game “Arena of Fate” will bring real-life storybook characters into the game, according to a representative from Crytek at E3 2014.
The MOBA world is one of the fastest growing genres in video games, League of Legends and DoTA 2 have both brought in millions of active monthly gamers and established an eSports scene that has crushed Starcraft and World of Warcraft’s growth, two of Blizzard’s core titles, slowly fading into the dust.
Crytek is not the first game developer to think about building a MOBA to rival LoL and DoTA2, but many have failed to gain enough users to keep the free-to-play battle arena running. Most sales come from skins and champions and if the game isn’t played enough, players will not invest money in new champions for the game.
Arena of Fate might have some unique factors apart from the characters, it will run on the Crytek Engine so it should be more capable of implementing abilities than other clients like LoL. It also looks like one lane is dominant and the jungle is more easily passable, instead of in DoTA2 and LoL where the jungle area is a thirty second walk away from the lane.
Right now, 16 characters have been announced for Arena of Fate, including Little Red Riding Hood, Fenrir, Jack The Ripper, King Richard The Lionheart, Arachne, Blackbeart, Grendel, the Chupacabra, Baron Samedi, Polyphemus, Van Helsing, Robin Hood, Joan of Arc and Frankenstein. We are interested to see the other 14 and what Crytek can come up with once the game is available.
This will not just be a PC only title like most MOBAs, Crytek is interested in bringing the game to console. Not sure how a MOBA will run with a controller, but perhaps toning down the difficult and learning could play parts in a successful launch on console.
