Vain Glory

THE ORIGINAL MOBILE MOBA Free | www.vainglorygame.com

VAIN GLORY IS the original gangster of this battle, releasing back on iOS in 2014, 2 years before Mobile Legends and 3 before AoV. Since its launch, however, it has expanded to Android and almost completely overhauled much of its design, bringing it largely up to date with Mobile Legends and Arena of Valor, including Joystick control, better team communication, improved tutorial and a much more balanced roster.

Vain Glory is also the only one of the three to be designed in the west, and it shows – the map design is unique from the League of Legendsesque clones features in its competitors, and its character roster is a little grittier and more sci-fi orientated than the Chinese-lore system of the others. It’s also easily the most stunning game out of the lot, originally optimised for powerful iOS devices, its developer has kept pace over the years to keep it looking fantastic.

As with Mobile Legends, Vain Glory does Australian support with local servers. It’s also much more generous on providing access to heroes and you generally get a lot more bang for your buck if you do decide to drop some coin rather than grinding your way through lots of games. Like the others, VG games can be completed in as little as 15-20 minutes, and there is a wide skill tree of players from casual to advanced.

That said, VG’s story is a little mixed. It’s player base is just as healthy as the others when it comes the main two game modes (ranked and unranked) but outside of the peak periods the wait can get fairly long. Compared to Arena of Valor or Mobile Legends, where I almost never waited longer than 20-30 seconds at any time of the day. Your mileage may vary here.