Forthemostpart,ChessRoyalelives
pretty straightforwardly up to its title.
Leaning heavily on the Might &
Magic franchise to provide a little
extra validity, it places a relatively
unambitious autobattler (the genre
birthed by the likes of
Dota AutoChess or
Teamfight Tactics) into
the vaguest-possible
battle royale (Fortnite,
PUBG) framework,
encouraging 100
players to fight it out
for top spot. It’s an
amusing gimmick to
add to a new genre, but it does little
to change the way players interact
with one another. When all your
autobattler competitors are already
last-man-standing affairs, bolting the
word ‘royale’ to the end of your title
isn’t exactly revolutionary.
Nevertheless, adding more than
90 extra players to the usual formula
does change things up a little. Rather
than a traditional health bar, Chess
Royale grants players three lives. Thefirstroundis somethingofa freebie,
granting a risk-free opportunity to
start building your army, but after
that opening battle, every round you
lose will cost one life. As players run
out of lives, their avatars disappear,
the 100-person grid
that charts progress
through each game
gradually turning to
black as more and
more armies are
knocked out. It’s a
ruthlessly efficient
means of thinning the
herd – whether it’s a
close fight or an absolute rout, you’ll
lose the same amount of health – and
it also ensures that you won’t spend a
frustrating half-hour rolling for the
one unit that might turn your
fortunes around.CHECKMATE
The result is an autobattler that’s
much faster than its competitors in
spite of its bloated player-count. PvE
and ‘Carousel’ rounds are out, as isanysenseofaneconomy– everyone
receivesthesamerewardat the end
ofa battle,with‘survivor’bonuses
beinggrantedacrosstheboard, and
small‘slayer’prizesbeingawarded to
thosewhoeliminateotherplayers
fromthecompetition.Building your
armyis alsoa muchquicker process
herethanelsewhere.Synergies –
collections of units that share similar
traits, such as mages or assassins –
are far easier to establish than in
Teamfight Tactics, as there are fewer
to build around. Items are replaced
by spells, which can impact the entire
board, rather than just specific units.
It’s Chess Royale’s mobile version
that fuels much of the game’s speed.
While its portability doesn’t affect
gameplay, the UI has clearly been
designed with mobile users at its
forefront. Buttons for using the store,
unlocking spells and levelling up are
particularly prominent, and the lack
of fine motor control provided by a
mouse has likely contributed to the
choice of a very small playing board.
Armies are arranged on a 3x8 grid,
dramatically capping tactical depth.
Thanks to the introduction of several
powerful units who confer big buffs
on their closest allies, many of my
most successful games have hinged
on simply huddling all my fighters
together in the centre of the board.
As a response to the hyper-
complexity of the MOBAs that
spawned it, the relative simplicity of
the autobattler as a genre seemed to
have achieved all that it needed to.
Yet Chess Royale has emerged as a
streamlined, fast-paced alternative.
The dalliance with the battle royale
genre adds little to the conversation,
but the pick-up-and-play approach is
a welcome change to a genre that
was never really about actually
playinganyway.NEEDTOKNOW
WHATISIT?
A peculiarcombooftwo
veryzeitgeist-ygenres
EXPECTTOPAY
Free-to-play
DEVELOPER
Ubisoft
PUBLISHER
Ubisoft
REVIEWED ON
Intel Core i7-5820K,
8GB RAM, GeForce GTX
950
MULTIPLAYER
Yes
LINK
ubisoft.com/en-us/
game/might-and-
magic-chess-royale70
It might seem gimmicky,
but Chess Royale is
an effective introduction
to a sometimes
confusing genre.VERDICTThe result is an
autobattler
that’s much
faster than its
competitorsO
n the face of things, this feels like the kind of game that
should never have been made, an amalgamation of ideas and
franchises that should barely occupy the same publishing
house, let alone be drawn together in the same studio. But
for all the ways in which Might & Magic: Chess Royale seems
from afar like an affront to everything that lead to its eventual creation, it’s
actually a refreshingly pared-down take on an emerging genre.ROYALE WITH CHESS
MIGHT & MAGIC: CHESS ROYALE sends the
auto-battler into turbo-drive. By Alistair Jones
BATTLES ROYALE
Five last-man-standing modes Ubisoft definitely could have made instead
FAR CRY:
BATTLEGROUNDS
Actually, I’m not sure
that this isn’t already
a side-mode in one of
the billion games in
this series.TOM CLANCY’S
BATTLE ROYALE
Who needs a clever
name when you can
just put a famous
author in front of
the title?RABBIDS
ROYALE
Kid-friendly, but
with the kind of
chaotic energy
Fortnite could never
hope to harness.WATCH_DOGS
ROYALE
Set it in London, and
it’s just another
piece of
commentary on
post-Brexit Britain.ASSASSIN’S
CREED:
SURVIVE
With freerunning
and grappling, Ubi
could have the next
Apex Legends.Might & Magic: Chess Royale
REVIEW