‘Vainglory’ Trailer: A Mobile MOBA Optimized for iOS 8
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If one were to highlight a single genre as having the most clout right now it would have to be the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, or MOBA for short.
If one were to highlight a single genre as having the most clout right now it would have to be the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, or MOBA for short. To be fair, MOBAs like League of Legends and DOTA 2 are not a relatively new concept, but their popularity as of late has inspired a number of different copycats.
But, while League and DOTA may be king of the PC MOBA, there is a completely untapped market ripe for the picking in the mobile space. That’s what the recently unveiled Vainglory hopes to deliver: a mobile MOBA experience that rivals the likes of the PC stalwarts.
Some might recognize Vainglory as one of the gaming experiences highlighted during the Apple iPhone 6 revealevent. Although the presentation didn’t go into too much detail, a recently unveiled trailer (seen above) further explores how Vainglory will take over your life and fuel a global competition.
Although some may dismiss Vainglory as just another MOBA clone or copycat, this game might be worth checking if only because of its developer’s pedigree. Super Evil Megacorp might not be a recognizable name, but the Vainglory team includes veterans from Riot Gamesand Blizzard, two of the leading developers in the MOBA space.
It’s also worth pointing out that Vainglory is an iOS 8-optimized experience, which means it supports Apple’s new Metal software. Metal was created by Apple to give more processing power and flexibility to games developed for Appledevices. And from a visual standpoint it looks like Vainglory is seeing some tremendous benefits from the added power boost.
Unfortunately, the trailer is fairly limited in terms of communicating how exactly Vainglory works, and what makes this a core MOBA experience. Not to mention, the game was touted at the iPhone 6 event, yet all we see are gamers playing the game on iPads. Clearly, that’s the way to go in a game where field of view and precise taps are very important.
Slight criticisms aside, Vainglory does have the look of a top flight MOBA. And if they can build off this Apple promotion then Super Evil Megacorpmay be able to dominate the mobile market in the same way DOTA 2 and League of Legends dominate the PC market. Keep an eye out for more on Vainglory when the game begins its global rollout this October.
What do you think of Vainglory ? Would you play a MOBA on a touch screen device?
Vainglory releases in October for iOS devices.