Chaos and team tactics are an old pastime in the gaming scenes, but they’re most prevalent in MOBAs. Games such as DOTA 2, League of Legends, and SMITE all fit this category in their way, but there was one that stood out above them… Gigantic, which was originally released in 2017 by Motiga. Unfortunately, Motiga had to close its doors in 2018 and they took Gigantic with them due to a severe lack of revenue. Well, one thing led to another and Gigantic was picked up again to be revived by Abstraction Games and Perfect World for its re-release on 9 April as Gigantic: Rampage Edition.

Now, Gigantic: Rampage Edition still carries a lot of the original flare but it comes with a few fun extras. Starting off, Gigantic: Rampage Edition is a MOBA at its core, but it doesn’t play like a normal MOBA, it’s more a mix of Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch 2. Instead of having to buy items for your hero, it’s all purely skill and tactics-based, and there are no trash mobs that you’ll have to deal with as it’ll just be your team of heroes vs. the enemy team for a much more fast-paced clash. However, there’s one major difference that makes Gigantic: Rampage Edition so appealing, it’s a third-person hero hack and slash/shooter where you’re not just running down a lane, you’ll be climbing and jumping all over the place too for some extra strategic advantage.

As can be expected with just about any new MOBA, you might not find much on the story front or lore at first. While each character has some very basic background, this will likely be expanded upon if Gigantic: Rampage Edition manages to survive long enough, but only time will tell. For now, though, your clashes will involve two titan-sized beings known as Aurion and Devaedra; depending on which side you’re on, you’ll have to assist your respective titan to defeat the opposing one. Granted, this is a little more complicated than it sounds.

Before you can jump into the action, you’ll need to survive the tutorial and it is honestly a blast. Tutorials are typically rather rushed or covered in tooltips where you’re thrown into the heat of it while having to figure things out, but Gigantic: Rampage Edition went in a completely different direction by first making you choose between a melee and a ranged hero to start. From there, it’s more of an interactive tutorial where you’ll be shown the basic ins and outs of the clash such as navigating, attacking, skills, and tactics.

With the basics covered, you’re just about ready to get to the juicy part of Gigantic: Rampage Edition, and it starts with picking a hero. Now, while there aren’t endless lists of heroes to choose from, the available pool of heroes all have their unique quirks and parts to play and their unique roles. We all know the typical MOBA hero roles (Tank, Melee and Ranged DPS, Mage and Support) that are a ‘one per hero’ deal, but Gigantic: Rampage Edition threw this rule out and added more versatility to each hero by allowing them to jump between 2 or 3 different roles depending on their respective builds. Healers can now become monstrous DPS heroes and simple DPS heroes can take on utility or even Tank roles, leaving you with endless versatility to create your playstyle.

On the matter of builds, there are no shops where you buy items, it’s all purely skill-based, and Gigantic: Rampage Edition opened up a whole new world for role-shifting and builds. As mentioned before, each hero can take on different roles based on their build, and the stock builds are nice but you’ll want to go down the custom route for this one. Each hero has their own set of skills that level up during each match, but each skill can also go down one of two paths that define the role for that skill. Some skills come with more damage or added effects while others change the skill entirely into something more aimed towards crowd control.

Now, the other reason you’ll want to delve into custom builds is because of the auto-leveling option that will automatically apply your planned-out leveling build as you go, freeing you up to focus on the action. However, you don’t have to use auto-leveling if you want to go with situational building and this can also make a difference where you need it most. However, where your heroes will start to shine is with their Ultimates and Passive skills. Once again, these two also come with options but your Ultimate still only comes with two options while you’ll have three for the Passive. However, your passive doesn’t act like a normal Passive would, it’ll mainly affect a single skill by adding even more firepower or creativity to your arsenal.

Going back to the clash, what sets Gigantic: Rampage Edition apart from other MOBAs is that it doesn’t rely on trash mobs and kill counts, your objective between Rush and Clash Mode is to charge up your side’s beast by gathering energy from several points on each map. These points will slowly charge over time and it’ll be up to you to steal the energy from them, granted, your opponents can do the same thing and they can also interrupt you. However, you can use a charged point to your advantage to pick off enemies too as they’ll give some energy as well. If that’s not your cup of tea, some maps will also allow you to summon a guard for it and these guards can be Healers, Tanks, or DPS too, just to make life a little more interesting.

All that’s left now is to fill up the energy bar and allow the chaos to ensue as your beast uses that energy to attack and open the opposing beast to a serious beat down from you, though this is easier said than done as your opponents will likely rush to defend their side as well. The objective for either mode is to exterminate the opposing side’s beast and you’ll need to use every advantage you can muster if you want to claim victory, and let’s not forget the rewards that come with victory as well.

Life in Gigantic: Rampage Edition isn’t just a constant fight though, sometimes you also need to add your own personal style to your heroes. Well, look no further because you can technically buy hero and weapon skins too. However, there’s no telling at the moment if Gigantic: Rampage Edition will get the microtransaction treatment like so many other releases or if it’ll instead purely run on earning in-game currency to buy your next fashion statement. Our only hope is it’ll be the latter for the sake of maintaining a different impact instead of milking players for cash.

You’re probably wondering how you can earn in-game currency, and it’s actually pretty simple. Gigantic: Rampage Edition comes with an interesting take on daily and weekly tasks that will reward you, and they’re called Fortunes. Fortunes are reshuffled often enough and they can be general tasks such as winning a set number of times to more hero-specific tasks that will definitely prove to be more of a challenge.

As can be expected, Gigantic: Rampage Edition is an online MOBA, and therefore, matchmaking is a must. Unfortunately, server issues seem to be a big problem for this rising beast that will leave you somewhat frustrated due to the lack of match stats loading and other issues on launch. It’s sad to see this happen but this can still change if the developers patch out the issues soon enough.

On the visual side of life, Gigantic: Rampage Edition still uses the same art style as its original release which relies heavily on pastels and semi-simple texturing to give you a world that looks very casual but also quite detailed. This might not appeal to everybody since this does technically count as partially retro but the 3rd person fighting is what really puts you in the hot seat as you fight for control. However, the biggest star in this regard would have to be the animations and how much care went into each hero’s unique animations.

Now, no MOBA would ever be complete with some amazing sound engineering and voice acting, and Gigantic: Rampage Edition goes above and beyond with this. Each hero has their own unique voice and quirky voice lines that suit them down to the last letter, all we need is random interactions between them to put the cherry on top. However, contending for the top spot would have to be the sound effects used in a match, and once again, everything just works really well. Unfortunately, while there is some background music, it blends in a little too well into the background.

Overall, Gigantic: Rampage Edition is an obscenely rare sight on the MOBA scene and it looks like it might take a spot among the great MOBAs currently out there. The hero pool might be limited but with how much versatility is on offer with skills, it’s fair that the pool is rather limited but customs builds will also expand just how much is on offer. Aside from the server issues, the only big issue is the possibility of microtransactions possibly ruining another great release.
 

Jay Claassen (@R3GR3T_3NVY)
Senior Editor, NoobFeed