Rocket Arena is an upcoming free-to-play first-person shooter from giant Korean publisher Nexon and developer Final Strike Games. It is colorful, family-friendly and draws inspiration from the best of the best: Overwatch, Quake and Paladins.
When a developer is working on a new shooter, it's hard to come up with better sources of inspiration than the ones above. Luckily, despite a broad appeal that tries to open the game to a market comprised both of adults and youngsters, Rocket Arena is fun to watch and play.
Much of this comes down to the cheerful look, with characters that feel like they jumped out of a Disney movie. One of the six characters, Amphora, even looks a bit like Elsa from Frozen, although the ice theme is left for another female character, Kayi. All of them are delightfully cute and resourceful - one might call the art style childish, but I'd rather go with cheerful.
During its first closed beta, Rocket Arena felt surprisingly polished. It's a bit light on content as most games usually are at this stage, but you can already get a feel for the characters, maps and game modes.
There is a twist to taking out your opponents in Rocket Arena, which is not entirely dissimilar to Brawlhalla - you blast them out of the map. The 3v3 matches are fast-paced and perfect for short bursts, with each character featuring its own abilities and ultimate.
The maps, of which there are six so far, match the skillful design of the heroes. While small, they are extremely detailed and designed in a way that provides several tactical approaches, with verticality being one of the possibilities to explore. The Icefall Keep map is one of the highlights, a snowy kingdom that is worthy of a fairy-tale.
There are four game modes right now, with Knockout being your basic deathmatch. You have to throw your rivals out of the arena three times to win. Rocketball is mix of soccer and FPS, as you have to carry the ball to the opponent's goal. In Mega Rocket you have to capture the zones where rockets dropped from the sky, with the team with more conquests winning the match. Finally, there's a cooperative mode against hordes of AI-controlled Rocketbots.
As you play, you level up each hero individually and unlock rewards. There isn't anything remotely new in this aspect, but it adds to the compelling nature of this shooter.
Rocket Arena is the kind of shooter that is impossible to hate. It looks great, plays nicely - you can even Rocket Jump, in a nod to Quake - and is suited to small sessions of gameplay. The character still need balancing and rocket jumping seems a bit off, with strange reactions to the impact, but this could be fixed during the coming months.
The big question that remains is if adult gamers will find its looks somewhat childish and off-putting. But hey, if that were the case, no one would be playing Fortnite Battle Royale either!
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