The Witcher: Battle Arena Review (iOS)

The Witcher series has been around for some time now, starting first as a series of novels written by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, and then continuing with video games made by CD Projekt Red as part of the main RPG series, and even spinoffs like the recent The Witcher Adventure Game.

Now, the studio wants to continue this branching out process, as it's just rolled out a mobile experience in the form of The Witcher: Battle Arena, which takes the universe and envisions it as a multiplayer online battle arena.

Does the new game manage to actually deliver a worthwhile experience or should fans just stick to the main RPGs? Let's find out.

Gameplay and multiplayer

The MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) genre is slowly becoming one of the most popular ones nowadays, as all sorts of titles are trying to succeed in the niche, while adding new things that make them stand out from the myriad of other competitors.

The Witcher: Battle Arena is no exception, as it doesn't feature some already traditional MOBA mechanics, like lanes or creeps. Instead, it actually goes towards the shooter genre by borrowing the so-called domination mechanic as its main mode.

Enter combat

This means that the two teams must compete to take over three different zones on the map. Conquering one such area leads to a quicker depletion of the enemy points. Both three-player teams start at 500, and reaching 0 leads to a loss.

The game has a much bigger focus on this domination mechanic than on kills, as respawn times are quite fast, so you're always able to once again enter battle.

Like in other MOBAs, you can choose between different characters, from series mainstays like Geralt of Rivia, to others like Letho, Zoltan, Iorveth, and many more. Unfortunately, the game keeps most heroes locked under microtransactions and there are just three characters in the weekly free rotation, which feels quite limited.

Items also play a role in combat, as you can use the gold you get during the match to buy gear that helps your attack, your defense, or your power. Unfortunately, there's no courier or anything like that, so if you want to upgrade your gear, you must go back to your spawn point.

“This brings into question the movement mechanic, which feels quite sluggish. What's more, plenty of skillshots that don't lock onto enemies have a high chance of missing.”

While some characters, like Eithne, have abilities that keep players from moving, you can't really communicate with your squadmates in order to take advantage of them.

You can play The Witcher: Battle Arena in different ways: alone with bots in your team and in the opposing one, cooperatively with other humans against bots, or just versus other humans. A ranked mode is mentioned but right now it's unclear when it might appear.

Some of the full online matches also suffer from a bit of lag, even if you're connected to good wireless networks. A few glitches are also present but quite a few patches have already appeared until now, so things are moving into the right direction.

Like with any free-to-play experience, there's an in-game store that offers players all sorts of things in exchange for crowns, the special virtual currency. You can buy new heroes, skins for them, weapons, or inventory slots. At the end of each match you get different loot which can be kept or destroyed for crowns.

The game doesn’t consume that much battery, at least on the iPad 3 on which we played it, so short matches shouldn't have that big of an impact on your device's endurance.

Deploy powers

Visuals and sound

The Witcher: Battle Arena looks pretty decent for a mobile game, but unfortunately, the ground textures aren't that great, and because of the top-down perspective, you'll be staring at it most of the time. The character models are good and quite a few spell effects are impressive, so it's not all that bad.

The soundtrack is decent but the taunts get quite repetitive, so you'll quickly start muting the whole game in order to avoid getting bored.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion