In the world of mobile gaming, there are few titles that can compete with Arena of Valor. With a player base that has peaked at over 200 million players, the MOBA is a veritable kingpin of pocket gaming. And in September, Tencent will bring this free-to-play juggernaut to the Switch.
According to Project Manager Edward Gan, the game is all about making the MOBA experience more accessible to players – both in terms of portability and ease of gameplay. Compared to other MOBAs such as Dota 2, Arena of Valor for Switch has a number of features to ease new players into the genre. There’s an “auto-buying” feature, for instance, that will automatically purchase necessary items for players. If this had been around when I’d tried Dota 2, I guess I wouldn’t have accidentally bought two boots of speed (I saw one boot on the photo and assumed I needed a pair). This feature can apparently be disabled once players have mastered the item system.
Another addition to make things easier for new players is the ability to earn gold from “damage caused”. In most MOBAs, players have to kill the object they’re attacking in order to earn gold – a rule which makes life difficult for new players to gain currency. Gan stated that in Arena of Valor Switch, players will not “really need to deliver the last hit to gain gold,” thus opening the game up to newcomers.
Source: Eurogamer Arena of Valor is the biggest game you've never heard of – and it's coming to Switch