War Robots

Template:Infobox video gam

War Robots is an action freemium mobile app game developed and published by the Russian game developer Pixonic. It was first released on iOS in 2014 and was released to Android the following year.^[1]

War Robots (previously titled Walking War Robots) is a third-person shooter with real-time PvP battles in MMO mode. Players operate a giant robot on a live battlefield and they have the option to play solo or to team up with other players. Battles are held in 6 vs 6 mode and missing players are automatically added to the team with a special matchmaking system.

Gameplay

War Robots features a real-time multiplayer system. Upon choosing to battle, the game automatically searches for other players to fight. Upon entering the battle, two teams of 6 players are spawned on both sides of the map. The player gets 15 seconds to choose a robot before the 10-minute-long game begins. There are three ways to win each battle. Players can deplete the enemy team's bar (which is displayed at the top of the screen next to the timer) by capturing/holding more beacons, have a longer bar than the enemy team by the time the 10 minutes is up, or destroy each of the oppositions robots. Once in battle, players can either shoot all of their weapons at once using the red central fire button at the bottom-right of the screen, or they can choose to fire individual weapons by holding down its corresponding icon (bordering the red button). However, some weapons, such as the AT Spiral, can only be fired if the enemy is in a certain range from the player. When the player's robot is pointed at an enemy, a red target borders the oppositional robot, enabling the player to fire at and hit the enemy. To capture a beacon, players must move their robot close to it, but if there is an enemy near the beacon, progress capturing the beacon will be stopped. Upon being destroyed, players have the option to spectate, leave the battle, or choose another robot that they have bought.

Users can own any number of robots. However, in order to deploy it in a battle, each equipped robot requires a hangar slot which is purchasable with gold, which a robot can then be equipped to. There are three categories of robots: light, medium and heavy, with light robots generally being the smallest and fastest while being inexpensive, but also having weaker armament and fewest hitpoints, while heavy robots are the opposite, and medium robots are somewhat in-between. Some robots have special abilities, such as Jump or Assault Mode, which can be used to give the player an advantage, but have a cooldown before they can be used again. There are three types of weapon hardpoints: light, medium, and heavy, and each type of hardpoint can only equip certain weapons. There are many types of weapons, including machine guns, missiles, energy weapons, and shields. Players can own an unlimited number of weapons.

As players play the game, they can earn experience points. Levelling up unlocks new weapons and robots for the player to use. There are three types of currency: Silver, Gold, and Workshop Points. Silver and Gold can be earned through battles, though Gold requires players to have done three things: been in the top 3 of the winning team, won a battle with a friend, or have captured the most beacons in the winning team. Gold and Workshop Points can also be earned by completing objectives (i.e. destroying a number of enemy robots or capturing a number of beacons). Once the player reaches level 20, they can earn Workshop Points or purchase them with Silver or Gold. Silver can be used to buy and upgrade most robots and weapons. However, certain robots and weapons can only be bought/unlocked with Gold or Workshop Points. Players can only upgrade one robot or weapon at a time, although the process can be sped up with Gold, and the amount of Silver and time required for an upgrade increases exponentially for each subsequent level.

Reviews

Engadget gave War Robots a mostly positive review, criticizing it for lacking the ability to respawn and for making it very difficult to purchase better robots without making microtransactions, but overall stated that it was a "fun online multiplayer zone capture game with energetic robot battles".^[2] Android Police reviewed the work, writing "Walking War Robots isn't exactly original - it's borrowing quite a lot from the MechWarrior series, with a third-person perspective and mobile controls thrown on. But as a high-end, team-based online multiplayer mech game on Android, it's also fairly unique to the platform."^[3] Droid Gamers was also mostly positive, noting that the "graphics could be a tiny bit more polished but then again you have 12 players on the field which is a no small feat and the details that they have included like smoke trails from missiles and the audio are immersive."^[4]

148apps.com gave an extremely favourable review for War Robots, stating that "it's an interesting game that feels serious enough to be realistic. That's no small feat." A review by TechRadar stated that it was... "Fun and enjoyable. But needs more robots, weapons and a better reward system.^[5] App Spy also praised the game, writing that "The engine powering the game is impressive, even if some of the UI elements are a bit old hat, and the feeling of being part of a squad taking on another team is palpable."^[6]

War Robots recently reached it's two-year anniversary in 2016, and has celebrated two million downloads across all platforms. As a result of these achievements, a huge number of new features are coming to the game, including, new squad systems, new themes and colours for several robots, new weapons and robots, and a possible new map.

References

External links

• Pixonic official website