Move over, Dota 2. There’s some hot new competition on the scene.
AutoChess MOBA is a new mobile game that just soft-launched on December 1. Developed by Dragon Nest, AutoChess is a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game, based on the popular Dota Auto Chess mod.
The game allows players to choose up to five heroes to defeat enemies in order to gain XP and gold. There are a total of 20 heroes to select from and there are four modes: Ranked, Casual, Training, and Custom.
Of course, we have to address the elephant in the room. The game was immediately dubbed a ‘mobile version’ or ‘knockoff’ of Dota. This isn’t surprising, considering the similarities. After all, the mobile game was based on the Dota mod. There is a strong resemblance between the heroes and the maps of both games, which fans have pointed out.
They’re also not trying to hide it at all. Dota has Zeus, AutoChess has God of Thunder. Dota has Sniper, AutoChess has Dwarf Sniper. Come on.
You can see a one-by-one comparison of each character copycat in the YouTube video linked below.
Fan reactions seem to be mixed. Many seem to be harping on the similarities between AutoChess MOBA and Dota.
Others are complaining about the game’s buggy performance.
It’s not uncommon for a game to be buggy upon immediate release, so we’ll have to see if this issue persists.
While the game has only just recently dropped, an eventual large player base would not be surprising. Not only is it leveraging on Dota’s large player base, but the Auto Chess mod was incredibly loved. In 2019, Dota 2 passed the benchmark of a million concurrent players thanks to Auto Chess. Just between its release in January and April of that year, it was downloaded by over seven million players on Steam. A mobile version of this game only serves to make it more accessible, even if it is seen as a ‘knockoff’.
We can only wait and see how this plays out. For all we know, this could be the revitalisation that makes AutoChess stick for the ages.
