I had no idea what to expect going into my Rocket Arena demo at E3 2019. Being described as the Smash Bros. of first-person shooters sounded intriguing though and I was curious to see what that would be like. What I found was an approachable game that was a ton of fun to play! Rocket Arena is a first-person hero shooter game where every player is equipped with a type of rocket launcher, sound hectic yet! Only there are no deaths in Rocket Arena, instead a player is launched from the combat arena once a meter is built up from damaged received. After being launched a player will re-enter the arena to continue the battle. Each of the games 8 revealed playable characters have their own unique skills and abilities leading to some awesome combo attacks or saves. At one point in my demo I used my characters grappling ability to pull myself under the oncoming rocket that would have blasted me out of the map!
During my demo 3 of the games 5 planned game types were available, Knockout (all players have 3 badges and a match concludes when one sides are depleted), Mega Rocket (A giant rocket blasts into the map and creates a capture zone) and Rocketball (A ball spawns on the map and need to be delivered to a goal). The remaining 2 game modes are a training mode and PvE mode that pits players against bots. I had a blast playing Knockout. Unlike other life based games, where your out if you run out of lives, Rocket Arena keeps depleted players in the game allowing them to protect their teammates with remaining badges or hunt the enemy team. One game we were down 3 to 1 but with a defensive coverage were able to pull off a last minute victory! Mega Rocket while not my personal favorite mode (It was still good) really allowed character abilities shine as you would knock opponents out of play. I also really enjoyed my time with Rocketball and was happy to see that the developers disabled character abilities while holding the ball so you couldn’t just fly to the goal for an easy win.
Rocket Arena was easily one of my favorite demo’s at E3 2019! Rocket Arena will be launching soon for PC and Xbox One and support full crossplay between them. Rocket Arena will also be free to play but i was assured that all microtransactions would be cosmetic only, Thank goodness. If you are interested in trying out Rocket Arena before launch beta signups will be available soon on the official website!
