Zeal

Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development.

MMORPGs are the ultimate gaming experience for those that want to add a dash of fantasy (or sci-fi, or steampunk, etc.) into their lives without taking away the social element of interacting with other actual human beings. While some of us love the questing part, or others enjoy the economic part, there are those few who adore the idea of bashing other player's avatars to pieces in an arena. This element is called PvP, and it forms the backbone of Zeal, a fantasy MMO where all you ever do is test your mettle against other players in an arena.

Normally in an MMORPG, you first start as a character that is no stronger than the first creature you meet in a forest, and you eventually grow into a being of titanic strength. This is not the case for Zeal, since everyone starts at the same power level, with no previous item drops or stat difference to tip the balance in anyone's favor. The only thing to ever change as you play more and more is your rating, which is used by the matchmaking system to find suitable opponents of similar skill levels.

There is no open world to explore, and all you have is the arena where your sole purpose is to kill everyone before they kill you.  As such, it comes as no surprise that some of you might find the game to be a bit too elitist in later stages, or the learning curve to be too steep since you might be taken too suddenly by experienced players. Thus, one way to train and improve your skills before the bloodshed begins is through matches played against AI bots, which themselves automatically scale as your rating rises or falls.

The game offers an extensive roster of characters so far, ranging from iron-clad behemoths that protect allies to nimble assassins that stalk in the shadows. Each class has their own toolset and can fight in a variety of ways, thus making many team compositions viable for competitive play. Each class has the masteries they can customize, each affecting spells in their way, allowing you to create a character as unique as yourself.

Zeal's targeting system is different than similar games before it. Denying target locking for most abilities, successfully landing your arrows, spells, swings or even healing abilities will determine if you'll be the survivor of the bloodbath. Since it is obvious that this game follows a rock-paper-scissors trend when it comes to combat, coordination and cooperation is the key when playing  2v2 or 3v3 matches, each class trying to boast each other's proas while hiding their weaknesses as much as possible.

Zeal focuses on competitive PvP that revolves around customizable builds and team play, skipping the whole leveling up, raiding and questing phase. All you need is to pick your class, create your build and prepare to slay your enemies while defending your allies.