Auto Chess comes full circle with its own MOBA spin-off

The publisher of Auto Chess has announced an Auto Chess MOBA.

Auto Chess MOBA uses the heroes from Auto Chess, all of which will be free to play with.

Dragonest made the announcement in a video published earlier in January (thanks, Kotaku).

There's a wonderful circle of life element to this announcement: in early 2019, a group of Chinese developers collectively known as Drodo Studio released Dota Auto Chess, a custom game mode for Valve's MOBA, Dota 2.

Dota Auto Chess exploded in popularity, sparking a race to release competing auto battlers at a raft of PC gaming companies. Riot released Teamfight Tactics, Valve released Underlords, and Blizzard took a shot with Hearthstone's Battlegrounds mode. Drodo Studio eventually released Auto Chess as a standalone game, published by Dragonest.

While the auto chess hype has certainly died down (Valve's Underlords isn't in the top 100 games by current player count on Steam), the MOBAs the genre spawned from remains hugely popular, with Riot's League of Legends and Valve's Dota 2 still pulling in millions of players.

Dragonest didn't say much about its Auto Chess MOBA, but it did promise to keep things fair with no pay-to-win elements, no stats growth outside games and all heroes being free. Meanwhile, there's a day / night cycle system and destructible objects.

Platforms and a release date have yet to be announced, although based on the snippets of footage in the announcement video, Auto Chess MOBA is a mobile game.

Will you support Eurogamer?

We want to make Eurogamer better, and that means better for our readers - not for algorithms. You can help! Become a supporter of Eurogamer and you can view the site completely ad-free, as well as gaining exclusive access to articles, podcasts and conversations that will bring you closer to the team, the stories, and the games we all love. Subscriptions start at £3.99 / $4.99 per month.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7psHRqJ6apZWne6%2Bx02iYrqyfYrCpsdKsZKCnlah6p8HLpWScoaKYuaZ51qKroWWZqcBuu9anZKankpZ6tLzIp2SonpY%3D