Raid: Shadow Legends

Raid: Shadow Legends made its way into wider awareness more through marketing than the gameplay itself — the game became notorious for a flood of sponsored videos on YouTube, recommended by creators across all sorts of genres, making it one of the most recognizable mobile titles, though this visibility didn't always match the quality of the game underneath. The battles themselves are turn-based; the player assembles a team of champions from various factions with their own weaknesses and strengths and progresses through the campaign and special challenges, mechanically similar to dozens of other gacha RPGs on the market running on the same basic principle.

Made by studio Plarium, the game launched in 2018 and was built primarily around collecting and upgrading champions through artifacts and factional warfare between the various tribes, giving players a long-term goal in the form of completing collections and optimizing gear for the toughest content. Critics have long viewed the game as a solid but not particularly innovative entry in the genre, whose real strength lay in the marketing budget funded by player spending, not in the mechanics themselves.

Monetization is typically gacha-based: champions are drawn for in-game currency that can also be purchased, with a low chance for the rarest faction leaders needed for the toughest battles. The game is free to play, but faster progress requires either a lot of time or money.

Why play it: For fans of the gacha RPG genre looking for another entry in champion collecting, rather than for those expecting something the marketing around the game promises as exceptional.