Paladins Champion of the Realm, the newest game from Hi-Rez studios (creators of SMITE, and publisher of Tribes). The game features (so far) a cast of 9 characters who fight over a single point to capture. After capturing the point players must then escort a cannon to three “doors” which the cannon destroys advancing the game. Most games last about 10 minutes and feature fast paced action that’s pretty close to nonstop. The game currently features 9 Champions each of whom have 3 special abilities that are activated by a key press. In this way its very MOBA like, but the similarities end there.  Instead of towers, or turrets, the game has you capturing a point, for tickets. The more players on the point the more tickets you get. After 100 tickets, a “siege engine” spawns and you escort the engine to the enemies gate, where it fires at the gate and does damage. This all sounds pretty confusing but the game is honestly quite simple. Most of the game your directed directly to the objective that currently was needing to be achieved.

Paladins UI is very minimalist

The games major difference from other MOBAs comes in its card system. As you level up you are allowed to select a series of 5 cards which have unique effects on your three abilites. One might boost damage, one might boost duration, anotehr might cause a debuff on the enemy. This is how the game handles “builds” the cards are drawn at random from your stack as you level up, and you can earn more cards each time you level up, or you can purchase more cards  for in game currency or buy cards. Yes the game has microtransactions, its not yet clear how all of them will work, but it does seem clear that at least you can earn everythign thats currently in game just by playing. You would have to play a lot, but you could earn it all.

this screen is what you get when you level up

I found the game to be a lot of fun, I streamed it for two hours, you can watch the VOD here on my twitch channel, but watching 20 minutes of it should give you enough of an idea of what the game is about to decide if you like it or not. Most matches last less than 10 minutes.  Personally I love the games look, really reminded me of  Wild Star. Its very cartoony and bring, something that I honestly love. The style is often made fun of for being too childish, but for me dark games are just too much, I really prefer the pretty colors and particle effects. The Beta is very much a Beta, with new content being added very quickly. It also has its fare share of bugs, but there is a full forum for reporting bugs and I have no doubt that Hi Rez will work diligently to iron out the bugs, while adding as much content as they can.

Currently in semi-open beta you can sign up on the site or purchase access (buy in for 20$ here) on the Hi-Rez site. The game is I think its worth the the small buy in to get on the ground floor. The game is (At least according to wikipedia) planned for multi console release, so getting in early on PC should give players an edge. Judge for yourself by checking out the youtube and twitter content that Hi-Rez is putting out.