Two opposing armies seek to lay low their enemies' lines of fortifications, outlying outposts, and supply depots. They rely on coordinated pushes, often suicidal assaults for the many troops involved, to break their enemies' will. They seek to develop or acquire new strategies and technologies to break the stalemate of fighting over an ever-growing no man's land. I'm either describing Trench Warfare or the very popular MOBA genre, or, in the case of the upcoming March of Giants, both at the same time.
It's a MOBA that in the words of its lead designer wants to turn the arena into a battlefield. Players in the 4v4 matches are towering giants infused with mythical power who serve as champions and commanders for their side, shaping their three traditional lanes into a warfront with bastions of defense built up by the players—even pulling soldiers and supplies away to meet needs on another front.
I got to spend a day playing its current in-development build, and I think that it's looking surprisingly promising. I say surprising because the genre has historically been pretty set in stone. It's wild to challenge the titans of it like League of Legends and Dota 2. However, key developers on March of Giants also worked on another game you'd think was challenging immovable competition—Rainbow Six Siege, which in many ways went up against tactical shooter titan Counter-Strike and has survived and thrived to this day.
From what I saw, March of Giants is playing some of the same cards as Siege did, including one key decision: While it plans to incorporate the accessibility you expect from a game made in this decade, March of Giants doesn't dilute the genre. It has the hardcore things that have survived and thrived in the MOBA for years—from big stuff like separate skill leveling and complex itemization to the littler things like last hitting.
But it didn't feel tired. The big change is how the developers want the players to change and manipulate the battlefield. Commanding your retinue of soldiers is another ability in your arsenal as a player, as is placing battleworks that fortify positions and inevitably become ruins that shape the conflict's future.
In a typical match you can expect to contest a lane against one or more enemy heroes, all while trying to get experience points by taking out enemies and snatching up requisition points and supplies from the ruined city sections outside the attack lanes. The requisition is your money—used to upgrade your giant's own body. The supplies become battleworks, which can buy you an advantage in a pushed-forward lane or help your team hold on to a struggling one—a lot of which is down to what kind of hero you're playing and playing against. More on that later.
Battleworks aren't just defenses, either, but ironclad tanks, cavalry charges, and airship soldier drops. There's no RTS-style micro and basecraft going on here, but March of Giants is closer to the MOBA genre's RTS roots than I've felt a game has been in years. It reminds of the glory days of Warcraft 3 custom maps, where all kinds of wild ideas for what a MOBA could be were thought up and discarded.
As the match progresses you start to try and contest your enemy's supply depots and shop points, destroying them to empower your own team's abilities and deny enemies safe harbor. You also fight the opposing team over neutral objectives, like siege dozers that plow into enemy bunkers and towers like little else in the game. They're a perfect catalyst for a teamfight to kick off over, or for a lone sneaky hero to snap away from a distracted opposition. There's also bigger bosses to knock down—a vicious automated defense system and a rogue airship—that reward your team with big boosts to make strong pushes against the enemy, like a siege cannon that can reduce even end-game defenses to rubble.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/march-of-giants-might-actually-get-you-to-play-a-moba-besides-dota-2-and-league-ign-preview
