Paladins

Gamers like to condemn and point fingers at studios that borrow ideas from other games, but the truth is that there’s no other way for things to move forward. Very few ideas reach their final form from the first iteration, and that holds true for almost everything out there, not just video games. Hence, inspiration and evolution is a natural process, except of course in the case of total ripoffs.

Paladins is a MOBA with first-person shooter elements that’s heavily inspired by Blizzard’s massive hit, Overwatch. The differences are there, on the other hand, the most important of which is the fact that Paladins is free-to-play. On top of that, you can also collect cards and build a deck for each champion, which allows you to take advantage of many different skills and keep the experience fresh.

Besides Overwatch, the game took a peek at Team Fortress 2 a little bit as well, because it also features a few elements from Valve’s legendary multiplayer shooter. As for the game modes, they come in a variety of shapes and formats, depending on whether you want to guard the payload or engage in a classic domination round that challenges two teams to capture objectives and score the most points.

Hi-Rez Studios is also responsive for Smite, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the game is very polished and well optimized to run on most computers, even if it features flashy graphics. The first-person perspective is well integrated with the gameplay mechanics, and it actually doesn’t feel at all like a regular shooter. Teamwork is important, and the different characters make the experience enjoyable every time.

Depending on your feelings on the subject, it must be mentioned that Paladins contains microtransactions right from the first minutes of gameplay. Obviously, so does Smite, which means that it shouldn’t be a problem if you are used to the concept. Nothing’s stopping you from improving your characters the good old fashioned way, but not everything is accessible to non-paying customers, unfortunately.

In the end, Paladins is flashy, fast-paced and fun as hell, even if it’s Overwatch in a slightly different set of clothes. The fact that it’s not original should be too much of an issue, especially when you consider the fact that this one is free-to-play.