One of the first things the team from Vela Games told us during the press preview for Evercore Heroes last week was that the game isn’t a MOBA. While it’s technically not a MOBA in the traditional sense, Evercore Heroes looks and plays like a MOBA with one big twist! There’s no direct PvP component.
That being said, the game is still focused on competitive multiplayer but you won’t be attacking enemy heroes. Instead of focusing on killing enemy heroes and towers, four teams of 4 will be roaming around the map farming monsters to earn gold for equipment or Lum to power up their Evercore.
At the end of each timed round, players will need to head back to their core and defend it from a constant wave of monsters until one team falls. This is repeated until there are only two teams left that face off for a final epic endgame encounter. One great thing about this system is that if your team isn’t synergizing, it only takes a few minutes to get knocked out of the match and you can quickly queue up for another round.
During the preview event, I was able to participate in two unique endgame experiences. The first was similar to the typical end-of-round core defense except every time you killed an elite enemy it was sent back at your opponent. This created a couple of different strategies that could be used, typically either trying to cull everything coming your way or just focus on burning down elites to send them at your enemies.
The second encounter was a raid boss with multiple attack patterns and different phases. For this particular boss, you had to dodge massive attacks while charging beacons to get a team-wide damage buff. This first team to slay their boss won the match.
I definitely preferred the raid boss to the wave defense simply because it felt like a more epic end to the game. It was easy to track who was in the lead and landing that final blow just felt great. During the defense mission, it was more difficult to keep track of who was winning and the match just sort of ended once the enemy’s core was destroyed.
Since I was more focused on defending my own core, as opposed to attacking the enemy’s, even winning felt a little anticlimactic. That being said, battlegrounds that have the raid boss could easily snowball with a single team having a gold and item advantage throughout the game, which would then carry over to the final encounter.
Based on what I’ve experienced so far, I definitely think Evercore Heroes has something unique to offer. As someone who used to be big into MOBAs, the genre has felt a little stale for the last 5 or so years ever since most developers moved on to more trendy game modes like hero shooters and battle royales.
I’ve known quite a few people who love the gameplay mechanics of MOBAs, specifically the RTS/ARPG combat style, and the match system but didn’t really like the competitive nature of the games. The PvP focus often led to a lot of high stress and toxicity during matches. I can’t say that Evercore Heroes will completely eliminate that fierce, competitive nature or any form of toxicity, but it should definitely lessen it.
Putting an emphasis on PvE will allow players to focus on working together and making the most of their own playstyle and game plans instead of having to worry about other people directly disrupting them. For example, in typical MOBAs, a team can really be vibing at first but an early gank could quickly cause emotions to spiral. I definitely think there’s a market for players who want to compete while not being at the mercy of the other team.
That being said, there are ways to indirectly disrupt the enemy team. Before each match, players can choose to bring an item with them. These consist of power-ups and healing potions, but there are a couple of options you can use against the enemy team.
During a match, each team essentially has their own instance of the map. You can clear the same mobs, do the same objectives, and fight the same elite monsters as the other teams. The enemy heroes aren’t technically visible, but you can see wisps that display their location. Therefore, bringing a freeze grenade or lightning storm could delay or stop an enemy from taking a key objective. These are limited use, however, so picking the perfect time to use them is key.
With that in mind, I do hope there are additional ways to disrupt enemies in the full game. From what I’ve seen so far, there are only a few ways to do this such as the freezing grenades or sending elites at them in the final round. I’d love to see more, smaller objectives during the exploration phase to send special monsters or debuff your enemies during the defense waves. These would still be indirectly interactive but it would allow alternative strategies besides farming items to defend your core with.
Without a significant amount of options to interact with opposing teams, I worry about the skill cap for Evercore Heroes with its focus on PvE. It will be very easy to create a meta and optimize exactly what needs to be done or what heroes to take for each specific map. Current MOBAs thrive due to their diversity of heroes and how those heroes interact with each other whereas Evercore is more like an MMORPG in that aspect, which are usually fine with about a dozen classes.
That being said, the hero design so far feels excellent. I had the chance to play as a healer who empowered allies by doing damage herself, a buff stacking melee DPS, and a standard bow-wielding ranged DPS. Each had a plethora of unique feeling active and passive abilities, and there’s an entire skill tree for each character. The design team has really nailed these so far both visually and mechanically.
After what I’ve seen so far, I’m excited to see what Vela Games has in store next for Evercore Heroes. Those interested in trying out the closed beta can purchase a founder’s pack for $19.99 and join the fun on June 20, 2023.
