Games of Glory Takes MOBAs to the Future

Capture points and kill players to take down the Emblem. By Leah B. Jackson Games of Glory, the upcoming futuristic MOBA from Lightbulb Crew, puts a few spins on the traditional MOBA formula. I recently played a couple matches of the alpha version of Capture the Points mode, and was able to get a very early feel for what the bright and technological MOBA is trying to accomplish.

The core gameplay is quite different than what you'll find in a MOBA like League of Legends or Dota 2. Instead of a long lane game, your main goal is to complete objectives in order to overcome the enemy's base.

You take the role of characters called Clones, which are divided in to tanks, assassins, scouts, carries, and supports. Tanks are bulky defensive characters, designed to take a lot of damage. Assassins and scouts are the damage dealers with some versatile combat manuevers. Carries are geneerally pretty weak at the start of the game and ramp up in damage as things progress, while supports help out on the battlefield, offering heals and aid, in addition to some combat buffs.

I played as a ranged carry named Pinto in the first game, who could jump over walls and attack enemies with an aimed skillshot. He could also get all of his weapon energy back instantly, which was incredibly helpful for taking down unlikely opponents, but more on that later.

In the Capture the Points map, two teams of five are ultimately trying to destroy the opposing team's base. The twist is you can't touch the enemy base until your team takes down the other team's forcefield, which is done by capturing and holding three areas in the middle of the map. For each second your team holds a control point, the other team's forcefield starts ticking down from 1,000 to 0.

Once the forcefields are gone completely, your team can proceed to attack the Emblem, or core, of the other team's base. If you can destroy the Emblem, your team wins.

By taking down an enemy player, the other team's forcefield will go down by five points, giving additional incentive to go after kills. To help bolster your team's offense, you can capture up to two gold points that passively generate additional income as long they're under your control.

The capture points and gold points randomly reset throughout the match, so you and your team will constantly be battling to hold as many points as possible. Additionally, minions will spawn in the control point areas during each match. They're tough at the beginning of the game, but important, as items give you a big leg up.

Games of Glory plays more like an action RPG than your typical MOBA. As such, weapons and movement control differently in this game than what you might expect if you're used to playing MOBAs.

You'll have a variety of guns and melee weapons to take out the other team, and can have two weapon sets equipped at a time. What's nice is that you can swap between your primary and secondary sets at will. Guns have limited energy, or ammo, and interestingly enough, the way different types of guns shoot vary.

Quick-firing pistols are used by rapid-clicking your mouse, whereas with a sniper-rifle, you have to aim, hold down your mouse, and fire at maximum range if you want extra damage. This adds an additional layer of skill to Games of Glory, and I liked the optional complexity. If I wanted to simply right-click down enemies, I'd quickly tap D to switch to my melee weapon on my other weapon set, and slash for the win.

Movement in Games of Glory is a bit strange at first, as you left click to move and right click to attack. After two games I began to get the hang of it, but it takes some getting used to. It definitely feels different than League of Legends or Dota 2, and while I understand that Lightbulb Crew wants Games of Glory to feel action-packed and unique with varying gunplay, I'm not sure if I'm on board with the decision to change up the familiar MOBA control scheme.

When you put everything together, the Capture the Points map in Games of Glory is intense, and there was always something for me to be doing which I liked. Whether I was going to capture one of the three center points, a gold point, or running off to try and nab a kill, I was constantly occupied throughout both 30-minute games I played, and am looking forward to testing out future modes, maps, and clones.

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Leah B. Jackson is both an Associate Editor at IGN and Corgi megafan, and not necessarily in that order. Follow her on Twitter and MyIGN!

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