The current March of Giants beta ends today at midnight, so if anything in this article seems cool, download it literally right now, because there isn’t another playtest till 2027.
I love MOBAs just as much as I love CCGs, and while the two types of games are quite different (real time vs turn based, digital vs analog, team vs single player) one thing they do tend to have in common is their iron grip over their player-base as lifestyle games. The grip often extends to their players wallets.
It’s not really surprising to me then that Ubisoft would try to make a MOBA. It’s surprising to me that they’re trying to do it in 2026.
March of Giants is a 4v4 MOBA, in the vein of Dota 2 and League of Legends (More LoL then dota, but more on that later), with a few twists on the on that standard MOBA formula. Winning requires knocking out two of your opponents three bastions, you can build RTS style base defenses, and leveling up doesn’t grant skill points.
But the really cool thing about March of Giants is it’s Rally system. The smallest creeps in the game, “rifle core” will cluster around and follow giants up to their rally value. They can be directed to charge enemy giants, objectives, and resources, or sent out in small scouting parties for vision.
If they hit an enemy giant, they’ll scale that giant Gullivers travels style, and inflict a chunk of damage that slowly ticks down. (Basically, if you send 50 soldiers, and they inflict 300 total damage, it will be applied as a tickdown until all damage is applied, but even if the enemy has less then 250 health, they won’t instantly die.)
Charges can also be redirected to wrap around pillboxes, or catch someone off guard.
It’s a fantastically weird and fun system, almost like a MOBA expression of games like Pikmin. Rifle core units also aren’t worth resources, so losing/misusing them is punished more in terms of opportunity cost then anything else.
I don’t have too many other thoughts on the giants themselves/balance/etc. I’m very bad at the game by my standard, and I’ll also note that March of Giants is using what I’d consider to be a League of Legends blueprint as opposed to Dota 2, which I’m far more familiar with. This can be seen in low mana costs/cooldowns, an AP/AD split as opposed stats, and a heavy focus on micro.
These aren’t intrinsically bad things, but the thousands of hours I have in Dota 2 don’t translate into an understanding/evaluation of them as effectively as I suspect they might for League players.
That said, I am concerned about the shelf life of this game. I think these systems are cool, but I don’t see myself replacing Dota with it, and it’s a shame, because some of these mechanics are really cool, and I’d love to see what skilled players can do with them. I do think I’ll play for a fair amount when it does release, if only to get as much time as in before it does close down.