PAX this year had a whole lot of two things: Oculus Rift and MOBAs. Coincidently, this is exactly what I was looking for as a prowled the Expo floor. The NEG team was able to see some really incredible stuff: Overwatch by Blizzard, the newest Oculus Rift variant, throngs of the latest and greatest hardware. But by and large the best experience I had at PAX was in a tiny media room on the main floor, behind the “Gigantic” desk.
Gigantic, a third-person MOBA-style multiplayer PC/XB1 game by Motiga, features sixteen unique heroes set in various combat scenarios, fighting to slay the enemy team’s Guardian. In the 5v5 demo I played, our Guardian was a huge, serpentine dragon monster, while our enemies faced off with massive golden Griffon. Our typical round of Gigantic, which lasted about ten to fifteen minutes, first involved capturing several control points located around the Canyon map. Once enough points were captured for a long enough duration, our Guardian duked it out with the enemy Guardian in the center of the map. Eventually, their Guardian would fall and expose a weak point, which our team could then damage. After the fallen Guardian takes a maximum of 33% of their total health in damage, both Guardians retreat to their respective bases as the two teams continue to vie for control points. The Guardian throwdowns in the center of the match can also uncover new areas to the map to contest, allowing for a dynamic multiplayer experience. Overall, the gameplay felt smooth and controlled, with plenty of space for team tactics and strategy to outflank and out-maneuver your enemies. Coming from a League of Legends background, I was a bit thrown off by the removal of distinct lanes and auxiliary minions to supplement combat and strategy, but I feel the map we played on had plenty of room to support competitive play.
After spending about five minutes getting a feel for the controls and the flow of the game, I felt right at home playing “Voden,” a AOE-damage sniper sort of character. Character movement is controlled using WASD, with basic attacks fired with LMB and character abilities activated using Q, E, and an “ultimate” move on F. Voden was quite a mobile character, utilizing super-jumps and dodges to easily navigate the map. After my quick five minute tutorial, I was easily capable to getting to the various nooks and crannies of the map, dual against my opponents, and pull off some simple combos. I cannot overstate how easy it was to just pick up and play. With what short time I got to play the game, I feel that while it has a very low learning curve, it could have a very high skill ceiling; Voden was capable of pulling off some serious synergies with his various abilities and other plays that I would have never pulled off without tips from my awesome Community Coach. Experience gained allows the player to upgrade skills during the match in a fairly unique way. Rather than simply increasing the number values on various skills like League, Gigantic instead forces the player to pick one of two upgrades for each ability. For example, Voden’s Decoy ability could be upgraded to do additional damage to enemies or to be deployed a higher range. This means that I could face off against an enemy Voden that could be spec’d to be a completely different character than mine.
Motiga is hoping to release Gigantic sometime this year. For those (like me) itching to get a chance to hop in early, the team is currently accepting sign-ups to test the game at http://www.gogigantic.com/signup. Currently, Gigantic will be a free-to-play game supported by optional cosmetic purchases including skins for characters, Guardians, and plenty of other in-game assets. Using this familiar free-to-play model, I’m hoping to hear a lot more from Motiga in the coming year. After two days in PAX East 2015, I wasn’t able to find anything that quite itched the spot that Gigantic did. I would highly recommend you keep your eyes out for this.
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