Hunter’s Arena: Legends Alpha Impressions – Explosive action RPG and battle royale

The first Hunter’s Arena: Legends trailers were mouthwatering, revealing a beautiful melting pot of action RPG, battle royale, and MOBA, with MMORPG progression mechanics added to the mix. The realistic environments blend in perfectly with the Legends, and when asked to join the first alpha test and create a sponsored video, we jumped at the opportunity. We recommend that you add Hunter’s Arena: Legends to your Steam wishlist so that you don’t miss any updates on its upcoming release.

This is a game that feels like an enhanced version of Black Desert Online’s short-lived battle royale mode Shadow Arena. However, it comes with new ideas and all the features that you expect from the genre.

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The Hunter’s Arena: Legends alpha still needs some polish. Optimization is surely one of Mantisco’s concerns, in order to make this game accessible to a wider range of players, because this is a stunning game with some remarkable lifelike environments, courtesy of Unreal Engine 4. You won’t see the highest quality in this video because we had to lower the detail a bit so that the game remained playable while recording.

With that out of the way, let’s look at the currently available Legends. You have seven characters to choose from, with 10 or more planned for launch, but this was enough to get a nice feel for the combat and movement.

There are three game modes: solo, trio, and tag. For a change, there is no falling from the sky as you start a match; instead, all players begin in the middle of the map, inside the city walls where there are several NPCs. You can purchase equipment, dance, chat, and hang around until the gates open and everyone makes a run for it. With up to 60 players per match, there is potential for much mayhem during roughly 30 minutes, as you rush from base to base, escaping from the ever-shrinking circle. The battle starts in 60 seconds, so make sure that you are already farming when push comes to shove.
 

There are over 10,000 monsters chilling around, with 20 different boss monsters; killing these will advance your experience level and give you skill points to unlock and upgrade new skills. After each match, you earn experience points based on your performance, to level up your character.

Combat has more depth to it than it might look at first. Even when you’re starting, completely stripped of any decent skills, you must learn how to block your enemy’s attacks and manage your stamina. Dodging is a good move, but for some reason I felt the lack of a jump button, both for sparring and mobility purposes. You can buy or tame a wild horse to move around faster alone or with a partner, but this magnificent creature still needs considerable work as it feels sluggish at the time of the alpha.

On the other hand, I was pleased to see that a ping system is available, and a nice one at that. You can pinpoint a location, but also suggest to attack, farm, trade, or standby, among other things. There are some nice details on the extensive map, such as an altar where you can resurrect a teammate, or a glider that allows you to fast travel to another location in the map, all for a gold fee, of course. You also have a nice selection of silly emotes to entertain onlookers or simply to spend some time while you wait for the match to begin.

The Tag mode is where you fight 1v1, picking two characters for your team in a best of three match. Tagging allows the other character to slowly regen HP, and ringout wins are a thing. This is a good way to improve your combat expertise for the battle royale experience.

The graphics are pretty good, with detailed characters and smooth animations. Watch that hair flow closely because that is one of the aspects where the team placed a ton of effort, but it can easily go unnoticed. Given the character detail, I truly hope there is an in-depth customization system in the works.

The Hunter’s Arena Legends alpha impressions are largely positive. This is a beautiful, fun battle royale game that still needs some polish, but it has a lot going for it. If you like the genre, I advise you to add it to your Steam wishlist so that you learn more about it and know when it is available. We’ll catch you next time.