Will Auto-Chess be the Next Big Thing?

With the
release of Dota Underlords and a few other Auto-Chess themed games, comes the
realisation that Auto-Chess could be the next craze. Battle Royales took over
the gaming community by storm, are we going to see a similar dominance with
Auto-Chess?

Not only
did we have cartoon violence and dancing in Fortnite, but we also had
ultra-realism in PUBG. If that wasn’t enough for you, EA got involved with Apex
Legends and Call of Duty had Blackout.

Does Auto-Chess have the potential to dominate?

On paper,
yes, it does. It has Battle Royale elements woven into its core design. You
take one eight other players hoping to be the sole survivor. The length of a
game is also reasonably similar to Battle Royales (BR), depending on which BR
you are playing.

There is
also talk of Auto-Chess having
a season type system, something popularised by the BR community. This
means they will make changes
every couple of months to keep it fresh for the players. New characters added,
old ones taken away and various other tweaks.

When you
boil it down to basics, there are a lot of similar features that the two game
types share. It’s not surprising Auto-Chess (AC) has aligned itself with such a
successful business plan. So, that means it is highly probable that AC can take
over the gaming community.

Auto-Chess will rule over all?

Well,
there are one or two issues that I see stopping AC from dominating the gaming
community. The biggest problem by far is the length of one game. If you are
going for the win, then a game can last well over half an hour.

This may
not sound like a problem at first, because most Battle Royales can last this
long. But, the issue is most players who play Blackout or Fortnite are dead and
back at the main menu in under five minutes.

Even if
you were the worst AC player ever, I don’t believe it’s possible to lose 100
health in five minutes. This, for me anyway, casts a lot of doubt for AC’s
success rate.

What can’t Auto-Chess do?

Battle Royales can be played in several ways. One way I used to play a lot was turn-taking with family and friends. This is where we all get a life at Fortnite and we try to get the most kills as possible. We all watch each other go wild, if anyone lands an impressive kill, or if the player doesn’t get a kill, we taunt them. It’s a fun and entertaining way to play the game.

This is
not possible in Auto-Chess because you can’t do anything like you can in
Battle Royales. You can’t free roam a large space, taunt your enemies or even
go for awesome shots/kills. I can’t imagine ever seeing compilations on YouTube
for Auto-Chess moments, that just sounds weird.

Auto-Chess is unlikely to dominate

It is
easy to sit here and say what AC can’t do. It can’t fold my laundry or do a tax
return, but that isn’t the point I am trying to make. Auto-Chess lacks the
freedom and creativity that all the Battle Royales flourish on. You don’t have
a character or avatar to customise and you don’t have a shop to buy skins.

All these
features mentioned are included in every single BR I can think of, which is why
they have dominated the industry for the past couple of years. Battle Royales
offer a lot more than just the BR itself, they offer you the chance to express
yourself. They give you plenty of things to do besides the obvious, which is to
win games. 

In order
for Auto-Chess to do the same, it has to include customisation and shorter game
modes for the casual player, otherwise, it will never catch on.