Can cell shading, vehicles shake up the MOBA landscape?

Can cell shading, vehicles shake up the MOBA landscape?

It's fair to say that the landscape of MOBAs right now is pretty saturated and dominated by the big boys. League of Legends, DotA 2 and to a lesser extent SMITE and Heroes of the Storm have a firm stranglehold on the scene. When Magicka: Wizard Wars can shut down prematurely, and Infinite Crisis can do the same, then what hope does a new upstart have?

Apparently that isn't enough to deter everyone though, as Phantom Compass, developer of pinball RPG Rollers of the Realm, has announced new vehicular MOBA, called Auto Age: Standoff.

Featuring customisable vehicles, a dusty landscape and a unique, cell-shaded art style, Auto Age takes some of the common tenets of MOBAs and combines them with fast paced, four wheeled combat to try and make something quite different.

The rad soundtrack in the trailer from TWRP certainly goes some way to setting it apart.

However what really looks to make this game different is the movement of the vehicles. Restricted to forward and backwards motion, positioning becomes even more important, though jumps and skill moves will certainly give the pro-players an edge.

Although aimed at PCs and available in an open beta on Steam right now, Auto Age: Standoff has console compatible controls, so may well do well on other platforms too.

What do you think of the vehicular MOBA?