Might & Magic: Chess Royale
The auto-battler hits turbo speed.
For the most part, Chess Royale lives 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 into the vaguest-possible battle royale 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. The first round is something of a 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.
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 is any sense of an economy – everyone receives the same reward at the end of a battle, with ‘survivor’ bonuses being granted across the board, and small ‘slayer’ prizes being awarded to those who eliminate other players from the competition. Building your army is also a much quicker process here than elsewhere. 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.