The MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) world might be too crowded to break into, but maybe a studio could sneak into the emerging Clash Royale clone market.
S2 Games announced today that Brawl of Ages, a new free-to-play PC game, is available via Early Access on Steam. Brawl of Ages combines elements of MOBAs and digital card games, similar to the mobile hit Clash Royale, which earned $1 billion in its first year. Brawl of Ages, however, is not a mobile game, instead releasing on PC.
S2 Games got its start with the PC MOBA Heroes of Newerth, which came out in 2010. For a time, it only trailed League of Legends (which came out one year earlier) as top of its field, but it fell behind when the MOBA exploded, losing to new competition like Dota 2. S2 Games released a new MOBA, Strife, in 2015, but it has not managed to compete with League of Legends or Dota 2.
“As we developed Brawl of Ages and took feedback from the closed beta, we were inspired by several real-time strategy, MOBA, role-playing game, and Tower Defense games as we wanted to hit the key features of these games with none of the drawbacks typically found in these genres,” said Marc DeForest, chief executive officer of S2 Games, in a press release sent to GamesBeat. “Brawl of Ages was designed with casual and competitive gamers in mind so players can quickly enjoy an intense action-strategy game or dig deeper and create unique decks and strategies as they rank up over time.”
S2 Games is planning a commercial launch for the game later in 2017.