March of Giants Preview: A MOBA That Plays Like Trench Warfare

Ever feel like MOBAs are stuck in their ways? You know the drill: three lanes, last hits, 40-minute matches. Well, March of Giants might just be the shake-up you've been waiting for.

I recently spent a day playing an in-development build, and I walked away surprisingly impressed. The core idea is simple but bold: turn the arena into a battlefield. You play as a towering giant with mythical powers, leading your army in 4v4 matches. Instead of just pushing lanes, you're commanding soldiers, placing battleworks, and fighting over supply depots. It's like someone mixed a MOBA with a dash of RTS—without the micro-management headaches.

Matches are designed to last 20 to 30 minutes. In my session, nothing went past 25. That means you could easily fit two or three rounds into an hour. For those of us juggling gaming with real life, that's a huge selling point. The map is smaller than what you'd find in League or Dota, so once you hit the 10- or 15-minute mark, things get claustrophobic fast. One big teamfight can decide everything.

But don't think this is a dumbed-down MOBA. The devs are keeping the hardcore stuff: separate skill leveling, complex itemization, even last hitting. What's new is how you manipulate the battlefield. You can pull soldiers and supplies to another front, place fortifications that eventually become ruins, and even call in cavalry charges or airship drops. It feels closer to the genre's RTS roots than anything I've played in years—like the wild days of Warcraft 3 custom maps.

You'll also fight over neutral objectives like siege dozers that plow into enemy bunkers, and bigger bosses like a rogue airship that rewards your team with a siege cannon. To win, you just take out two of the enemy's three citadels. Simple, right? Not when the whole enemy team shows up to defend.

The characters are where the depth really shines. You've got your typical big dudes, but also a skeleton, a werewolf, a tree, a cthulhu, and something called a Trench Maw. Each has multiple build paths. Take Iron Sister: you can build her as a support with heals and buffs, or as an obnoxiously tanky menace who supports from the middle of the enemy team. The choice is yours.

With key developers who worked on Rainbow Six Siege—a game that took on Counter-Strike and thrived—there's real pedigree here. They're not trying to dilute the genre; they're trying to evolve it. And from what I saw, it's working.

What do you think? Does March of Giants sound like a MOBA you'd actually play? Let us know in the comments!