Digitalchumps had the opportunity to sit down with Omeda Studios CEO Robbie Singh this past week and play through a few sessions of their upcoming MOBA Predecessor, and Omeda’s CEO is no stranger to the genre. Singh’s past lies with being a content creator for Epic Games’s long-since-gone Paragon. If you’re not familiar with the game, it was a long-lost MOBA with the promise of third-person gameplay, but never really found its feet on solid ground with what it needed to be to survive. I’m sure that League of Legends’ popularity back in 2018 didn’t help things either, which probably made it an uphill battle to gain a permanent place in the MOBA genre. Now, have said that, most great ideas come from failed ideas. Predecessor was born from the ashes of Paragon, and this phoenix looks like it is set to rise.
This week the game hits open beta status, something it has been inching towards since early access in 2022, and I can tell you that it is ready for primetime. The game is easy to understand, fun to dig into, and filled full of strong strategic possibilities that will certainly make for a fun time.
So, sit back, pick a lane, and let’s get going with this Predecessor preview.
Accessible to all
In all honesty, my MOBA experience is limited, and certainly not seasoned enough to go head-to-head at a competitive level. But I appreciate it from afar, and can certainly identify a good MOBA when I see it. And believe me, folks, I can see it with Predecessor.
Predecessor is an interesting MOBA that is led by simplicity and the ability for any player at any given moment to jump in and ‘go’. When you’re trying to reach a wider audience, which any good game should have that goal, you want to build it with the intention that anyone can quickly understand it and dig into how it works. At the same time, you can’t forget your competitive gamers who want a challenge. Finding gameplay with that type of balance is essential for a MOBA to take off in both the casual and competitive scenes. Hitting that balance means longevity and success. While I can’t speak directly from a competitive gaming experience, I can tell you that casual gamers should eat this up. I’m about as casual as it comes with MOBA and I could feel everything Predecessor had to offer through my playthrough.
For my experience with it, I launched the game, chose to play against AI, and pressed forward. From there, I chose a character from a list of 34 heroes available, though some were locked at the time of play. The main character I played during my preview session was Gideon, a mage who could stay out of a scrum but do some real damage from afar. His main power is casting a blast into enemies and then quickly retreating. Kidding, that is my main strategy. I’m a bit of a cautious player in MOBAs.
Once the gameplay started, it was a traditional MOBA structure. There were three lanes to choose from, with enemy towers on the left and right lanes (1/3) and all the lower, XP mining competition in the middle (2) lane. The game puts you to the test from the get-go, as you’re underpowered and need to earn coins from lower enemy deaths. Taking out enemies with basically just a blast from Gideon’s hand took some time. But within 2-3 minutes of fighting, and gradually taking down enemies, things quickly began to change.
As soon as you gain enough coin for an upgrade, the game will alert you that you’re ready for it, and you simply hit control on the keyboard. That quick motion launches a right-side window that gives you upgrade options. Thankfully, that upgrade window isn’t a book, which Singh pointed out was on purpose. The upgrade window contained bullet points that quickly explained what each upgrade available did and contained a hotkey to quickly choose the one you wanted. It was super simple to open the window, read through everything, and then choose. Because of this simplicity, it didn’t take long to see the fruits of my labor, as Gideon quickly went from struggling mage to super badass.
One of the first unlockables I opened was casting a giant rock to fall from the sky onto enemies below. The controls to do this started with the letter Q, then the mouse quickly became a landing target for the rock, one which I could move with ease, and then I just did a left-click to initiate the command. I was surprised by the upgrades ease-of-use, and how seamless pulling off the new move was during battle. It was a thoughtless process, which is impressive for someone who is still using a controller to play most PC games. I might have to switch things up if games are this easy with a keyboard/mouse.
The upgrades were fun to unlock and keep building. The best of the bunch for Gideon was an incredible power that pulled enemies into a black hole of sorts and did amazing damage to them. It was activated by the letter R and it took the longest to regenerate. It was a cool mage power and it certainly got me out of a few sticky situations during my gameplay. It also wiped out generals and towers pretty quickly, which helped my team out, especially towards the end of gameplay. The combination of easily accessible upgradeables that were simple to understand, and pretty powerful ones that were fun to see in action, made for a good time. It also gave me motivation to keep pursuing fights and to take out lower enemies so that I could take out better ones. Anytime you can get motivated to keep wiping out enemies and earning XP, and feeling that rush of entertainment that comes with it, is a perfect formula for replayability with a MOBA.
Anyway, as I became more comfortable with the gameplay, I began to do something that I never thought I would ever do with a MOBA – strategize. Please understand when I tell you that I’m a casual MOBA player, I mean it. I will go into a MOBA with guns blazing (or fingers in this instance) and just assume I’m going to die a billion times. It’s like having a Call of Duty attitude, where you just want to do your best and not really think about the consequences. Well, Predecessor made me a better MOBA player than the above description.
I went down the middle lanes to surprise my enemies, while understanding where the exits lay in case I needed to retreat. The game also made me appreciate helping out teammates and working with them instead of going rogue. While I won’t say that I called out strategy with Singh and his cohort during our session, I will say that I began to pick up what they were doing and understand how easy it was to find a suitable strategy to put my team in the best position to win. It was easy, and it made me want to jump back in and keep playing the game. I’m sure Singh and his partner’s back were hurting from all the carrying they had to do with me. Still, it was fun.
While my preview time didn’t last too long, and I did play a few more games before beginning this preview piece, I can say that the gameplay seemed available for everyone. When you can reach that sweet spot where casual and competitive gamers can garnish entertainment from a MOBA, you’re in a good place to ensure longevity for your product. Predecessor seems to have found that sweet spot.
Third-person gorgeousness
Visually, Predecessor wants to use a good chunk of your GPU, and rightfully so. While the minimum requirements for the game are an NVIDIA 1030/AMD Radeon RX 550, having a higher-end GPU will work wonders. There are some beautiful details in the characters and environments, and everything just seems like it was a well-planned visually designed world. Reflective explosions, smooth frame rates, and character models/animation that dance hand-in-hand with your GPU make for a graphically good time. It certainly makes me appreciate good PC gaming a bit more.
The fact that this game is third-person, also means you don’t have that far away bird’s eye view that typically comes packaged with MOBAs. The dirty, gorgeous details you can see up close and personal are true art. It’s a lovely perspective and actually affects the gameplay. While the isometric bird’s eye view is nice, as you can see enemies in advance, the third-person view adds a layer of strategy that previous MOBAs simply could not bring to the table. Not knowing where your enemies are brings an entirely new way to strategize in a MOBA game. It certainly changes things up with how you have to strategize, communicate, and approach enemy troops. It definitely adds some well-placed tension to the gameplay. There is nothing wrong with fresh and new in a genre that is far from that.
Anyway, you’ll love the visuals, as they’re more than just a pretty picture.
Esports ready
One of the questions that I asked Singh during my session was if Predecessor was prepared for the Esports scene. The question is a valid one, as new MOBAs still have a difficult time breaking into that scene. League of Legends still rules the roost despite what the common competitive gamer will tell you. According to Statista, the average number of viewers for LoL on Twitch in December 2023 was over 127k, which is ridiculous popularity for a game that has been out since 2009. It’s akin to Fortnite, where gamers will make fun of it, but then watch it and talk about it.
Omeda Studios seems prepared for Esports. In December 2022, the community asked for a replay system for Predecessor, as more and more early-access gamers wanted to just watch matches in motion. Having that all-encompassing viewpoint from Observers in the Esports scene is so vital for people sitting down and staying to watch matches. The devs heard the community and delivered one, so on the technical side of the tracks it is primed for competitive streaming. But what does it do beyond that?
Don’t get me wrong, having a technical backbone ready to go for Esports is a huge plus and makes a production person’s life much easier, as NDI and countless Black Magic Design converters don’t have to be in the equation. The fewer fail points, the better. As stated above, the game is accessible to a larger group of gamers. You don’t have to be a try-hard to get right into it, as its simplicity in structure, strategy, and execution makes it welcoming to gamers wanting to break into competitive gaming. The several hours that I played this game, the initiation into its gameplay design didn’t take long, so shifting focus on strategy with regard to the right character, and how to approach enemies in what lanes was something I could focus on. Quickly shooing away that jumping-off point of learning the game opened up the real possibility that most gamers who dive into Predecessor will become more competitive quickly. That is the right formula for getting a game to find its way to the Esports scene and for taking just a bit of that pie away from LoL. The more inviting and quicker it is for all gamers to get into a game, the more people will flock to it competitively. It’s an easy formula for success on the Esports scene.
Ultimately, the game is prepped for that scene and it might have strong enough legs to last in it. I’m hoping it does because it’s fun.
On that note, let’s wrap this preview up.
Conclusion
Predecessor from Omeda Studios is on the right path to becoming a premier go-to MOBA. Its openness to all types of gamers, from newbies to seasoned, makes it one of the more welcoming MOBA experiences in the MOBA gaming world. Where Omeda Studios takes it from its open beta status and shapes it for its foreseeable future is the big question, as most MOBAs tend to fall off course with their intentions. For now, it’s on the right path and it looks to be a permanent fixture in the genre.
We’ll keep an eye on it as it continues to grow.
