Deadbreed (Early Access Preview) and 100K free Steam Keys available!

DeadBreed, from a studio called Deadbreed AB, is a brand-new 3v3 “creepy themed MOBA” currently in its Early Access stage. It's a pretty standard MOBA, with lanes, various clsses and hero types, creeps that you can control and kill, special abilities to be leveled up, and armor and weapons to buy, upgrade, and equip. I spent some time with DeadBreed and while it's pretty similar to most MOBAs, there are some cool attempts to differentiate itself from the rest of the pack, which I will focus on for this review.

100.000 free Steam Keys are available for registered DLH.Net users!

This Promo-Packes includes:

- Special Bonus: The Mirage Map

- Special Bonus: The Undying Helmet Artifact

- Instant access to the Deadbreed® Beta.

- Corpus (Hero).

- The Sentinel: Behemoth.

- The Graveyard Map.

- Weekly gain of Keys that each will give you access to locked objects.

here is our Early Access first look

A Different Breed of MOBA

Sentinels are an important part of the game, and are basically a cool spin on end bosses. You start off by “pledging” yourself to a sentinel before you jump into a game, which pretty much breaks down to you picking one of the three sentinels that are available before a match starts. These hulking monsters serve as the end boss of the map, which you can access once you break through your enemies' defenses and beat the sentinels’ door in, leading you to their lair. Once inside, you have to kill the sentinel, which is often quite a difficult feat. These giant monsters have high HP and devastating attacks that can shred your character in no time if you aren’t careful. If no one from either team kills their opponent’s sentinel, the match is decided by points, so there's a large incentive to take them down. Once you kill a given sentinel, your standing with said sentinel will increase. Lose to one, and your status with the given sentinel decreases. What this boils down to is the more wins you have against a given sentinel, the more he gathers power and stats, be it health or offensive prowess. This is important, since your sentinel is basically your last line of defense, so having a strong sentinel is pretty crucial to your team’s success or failure.

There are a few different items on the map worth noting that have a significant impact on your character. Blood, Nectar and Spirit are three collectable items to find, and depending on your character, they will do different things. For example, some abilities will only activate if you have one of the three items, so you have to gamble onwhether it's worth leaving your teammates to run to a Blood Tree and grab a drop of Blood so you can activate an ability. It’s a small thing, but when your favorite ability runs on Nectar and you see some just beyond the fray, you have to make a hard decision.

It's All About Breeding

It's also cool how the armor or weapons you see on a character will tell you a lot about them. If you see a mage-type character holding a two-handed weapon, you have a pretty good idea what you are facing in terms of the character’s abilities and attacks. It’s nice to have that level of customization, but without seeing what the character is holding and using in real time you wouldn't know how to approach them. It’s a subtle thing, but ends up having a pretty big impact on how you tackle a specific enemy.

Speaking of the characters, there is a lot of customization available here. There are really no “mage” or “warrior” characters per se, although some lean one way or another. You can more or less select any character, and then outfit them with weapons and armor that suit your playstyle. This is a smart and really fun addition to the game, since you can be a mage who wields a two-handed hammer, or a warrior who also has long-range capabilities. You aren’t chained into one playstyle, and of course you can switch characters any time you like. Depending on the items you equip, you can play however you want, and it’s a fun bit of flexibility that goes a long way towards customizing your character. Throw in Artifact items, which are powerful weapons that only one character on either team can use, and you have some serious choices to make before jumping into a game. These Artifacts can be game-changers depending on what you choose, but unfortunately, there is a less than “honest” way to go about acquiring these items.

In-game currency rears its ugly head here, and it’s a damn shame. There is a lot of grinding that goes into obtaining and building Artifacts and other items, and having someone kick your ass because they have more money in the real world seems to defeat the purpose of the game a bit. Of course knowing how to play better or having a sounder strategy will always be more valuable, but it’s irritating to play someone who is buying their way to victory while you grind it out, trying to improve your character the real way.

Another gripe I have is the inventory/shop system. You can return to your grave by physically running over to it at any time, and once you do you can upgrade your character and buy weapons and armor. My issue is that it needs to be streamlined quite a bit. I am hustling all the way back to my grave, then I get hit with a tedious slog through the menus and descriptions, trying to find the right weapon or armor that suit my character. In its present state, it just takes too long to make your way through it, and in the meantime, I am losing to the enemy team.