In short: Survival Heroes, a title from Snail Games that fuses the MOBA and battle royale genres, is now available to Android users worldwide. Interested parties can find it in the Play Store for free, along with some in-app purchases for cosmetic goodies. The twist with this game is that it has the RPG-style progression and attack-ability-cooldown meta of a MOBA, but lets you drop into an arena, pick up your weapons and armor, and duke it out with 99 other players like most popular battle royale games. Aside from looks, everybody is mostly the same dropping in. The weapon you pick up determines your attack power, skills, and fighting style, while your armor determines your speed and how well-protected you are. Some passive perks are also tied to weapons and armor.
Background: Your characters run slowly. Attack combos are slow, and leave you very open. There is no way to dodge or block enemy attacks, leveling the playing field and demanding preparation before battles and skill beyond the typical twitch-action game. The perspective is top-down. This is definitely a MOBA. The only thing missing is the crystal, tower, or whatever other beacon may need attacked and defended during a round. This time, you are the tower, crystal, et cetera. Be the last one standing, or part of the last squad standing, in order to win. Pick up different gear to change your resistances, traits, skills, and attack patterns right in the middle of battle. Adapt to survive, keep a healthy view of the rest of the battlefield between the map, your own camera, and binoculars that you can pick up, and master your new play style quickly to overwhelm other players. This is definitely a battle royale. Indeed, it’s among the first of likely many games that will occupy both spaces at once.
Impact: This new mobile game is among the first of its kind, and is fairly well-executed. Prepare to see more genre-benders using newer genres step up to the plate if this one gets any real traction. This is all a natural evolution of the gaming world, of course; genres combining and merging is how new types of games have always been made, such as platformers and adventure games merging to create the likes of Metroid. As far as mobile gaming, should this game prove as popular worldwide as it has been in its launch markets, it will likely end up on the mobile eSports circuit, further legitimizing this particular genre bend and inspiring copycats who may do things differently or even better.
