Dropzone, Surviving The Masses

Dropzone is an early access online competitive MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game on Steam  which is either against other players or the AI.

1v1 mode is against the AI that come with varying skills, ranging from easy up to expert; 2v2 is focused on being on the same team as someone else (or the AI’s) against another team of either players or AI. The game has a Co-op mode in the works in the shape of a playable WIP (work in progress) where you need to co-operate with up to 3 of your friends or you can do it alone in single player.

Scoring points in the default modes is rather simple. You get to the alien AI, kill the queen, pick up her cores, and then upload them into an uplink terminal in the centre of the map. Well not so simple as that really as the other team is going to be doing the same as you, and the uploading time…well the pilot can’t attack back if they find him/her self being attacked by the other team, but luckily you do have 3 pilots to control, but don’t think you can upload 3 cores at a time ‘cos you can’t. You need to make sure you get the other 2 pilots to protect while the uploading pilot is doing their job.

The matches only last 15 minutes, but despite that its more then enough time. It also allows you the time to get those bonus points that are awarded for completing bonus objectives in a match. Objectives such as being the first to kill “x” amount of alien AI’s, and other types. There are 3 bonus objectives per match each rewarding different amount of points from 2 points up to 4 and they can only be rewarded once a match, so you’re gonna need to be fast if you want the extra points.

There is an experience meter at the bottom of the screen and when it’s filled up you can level up one of your pilots to give them better stats and upgrade more skills, and at the 5th level of a pilot, they can use there “ultimate” skill where it’s either a massive heal, a big concentration of DPS or other skills in the line of their class roles (ala Battleborn or any other MOBA / like)

While each pilot controls a different vehicle, each vehicle are part of different classes which are as listed,

• Tank – can soak up damage but there damage output is always close range like flamethrowers and melee weapons.
• Gunner – main dps of the group with the biggest range of the group.
• Summoner – summons drones and turrets to help the group with dps.
• Mechanic – main healers of the game which has fire power but they all have light frames so they don’t last long in fights.

Each pilot can be configured to what skills they use and what weapons they use under a class guideline, and you earn more and more skills and weapons the more you play, and with the daily objectives, such which get repeated every day, earns you more cash and allow you to earn “gear crates”. These crates let you use new weapons and skills which can bought via in-game currency or with real money.

The co-op mode is about protecting the central core against endless waves of AI aliens, which are protected by turrets, and though they can’t be healed they can be destroyed. You can’t level up or get points/in-game currency from doing the co-op mode, but it is good fun, and being only a playable WIP mode we might get stuff from it when it’s complete.

Although there’s no dedicated servers, it’s all connected by lobby’s connected to the master server. There’s no loss of information, and all match’s need invites to friends via Steam. I believe there’s a way to add friends in-game…Yup just checked, right click on someone’s message within the game’s chat on the main menu.

Visually Dropzone looks great as the top down asymmetrical view the camera offers, and speaking of controls, they’re all as you would expect with the mouse doing the majority of the work, left clicking to select units or using the num-keys appropriated by your pilot, and right click to issue an order, whether that’s move, attack or upload, and Q,W,and E are your skills, with R being your ultimate.

While there’s only one map for each game type 1v1, 2v2, and co-op, there’s enough meat on the bone to be very re-playable, with pilots themselves being able to level up to use better items, and with Ranked play and tournament modes coming soon this could quite easily be the next big E-sport title which is great if you ever watched Robot wars as this gives a subtle hint of it.