Gaming

5 great MOBAs you may never have played

In the beforetimes, when Dota and LoL didn’t rule the world, these quaint games ran free and wild.
Written by Chris Higgins
4 min readPublished on
Five great MOBAs you didn’t know existed

Five great MOBAs you didn’t know existed

© CartoonNetwork.com

When MOBAs were forged by the merging of real-time strategy, action role playing and team co-operation in the fires of WarCraft 3’s modding scene, a new genre was born. In the decade or so since, a few have risen to the top of not just their defined category, but gaming as a whole. But along the way to Dota, League of Legends, Smite and Heroes of the Storm there were a few false starts – and some more bizarre turns. Everyone knows the best and biggest MOBAs are, so here are five of the rest if you’re looking for a bit of a change from Summoner’s Rift.
Adventure Time: Battle Party
No seriously, it exists. Not only that, it’s still going. Adventure Time doesn’t have the greatest reputation when it comes to game adaptations, so the reception for this MOBA was understandably muted when it launched into beta last June. Despite that, the browser-based game still has a small but dedicated community who have kept on tooling around with the citizens of the Land of Ooo and customising them with outfits and backpack loadouts. It’s pretty surreal to go toe-to-toe with the NEPTR as Beemo dressed in a detective’s trenchcoat, while the Earl of Lemongrab shrieks “UNACCEPTABLE” nearby. But then most of Adventure Time is anyway.
Demigod
The first commercial release of a MOBA after it proved a successful game type in WarCraft III mods was also an early lesson for those to come after. The game followed the usual format, destroying the enemy’s base with the help of minions and other players, but only featured eight characters of two types. On top of that a shaky launch, hampered by pirates and accidental early sales, was compounded by server issues and netcode problems. Most – though not all – MOBAs since then have opted for an extended beta test period followed by a free-to-play model, and slightly larger rosters. That said, it’s still active, which is more than some others can say…
Dawngate
EA’s attempted foray into the world of competitive wizard fighting ended prematurely last year when the publisher shuttered it during a prolonged beta period. Citing that the game had not seen the progress they wanted in its 18-month stint in beta, EA bowed out early, possibly realising the by-now over-saturated genre isn’t the best place for a flutter. But that wasn’t before making their intentions to be the next big eSport clear as they organised several cash tournaments in the game’s lifespan, including a $15,000 grand final which ended in January.
Vainglory
Perhaps you may have heard of Vainglory, actually. It’s the pretty little iOS MOBA Apple showed off at last year’s iPhone 6 announcement. It’s also on the roster of games ESL is running tournaments for, after they struck a deal with developer Super Evil Megacorp in May. Though seasoned LoL or Dota players may turn their nose up at the thought of swapping their keyboard and mouse for...well, nothing but their hands, the genre lends itself surprisingly well to touch controls. Well, it’s mostly just clicking anyway.
Guardians of Middle Earth
Good old IP exploitation never fails, right? Well, if you’ve already got a fairly hefty roster of characters to choose from that’s half the battle over already. And who has more characters than the entire works of J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings? This tie-in was also a console-only affair (to give a more “cinematic experience” apparently) for launch, before being brought to PC a year later, which could have a hand in its eventual demise. It’s not like MOBAs can’t exist on consoles though, as Smite appears to be showing on the Xbox One.
Sign up to the Red Bull eSports newsletter right here: