With the recent rise of the battle royale and auto battler genres, it seems Ubisoft has decided that the best thing to do is combine the two to create something new. That is exactly what the studio has tried with Might & Magic: Chess Royale, an auto battler experience that pits you against 99 other players in a fast-paced arena contest that leaves only one player standing to take the crown.

In Might & Magic: Chess Royale, you put together an army of units from the Might & Magic series in a fight against 99 other players. The game borrows a lot from Dota: Auto Chess, Dota Underlords, and Teamfight Tactics. Players must focus on creating powerful synergies between units. But Chess Royale drops the teams and instead has every player fighting for themselves. As in Fortnite or PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, you want to outlast everyone else to get the victory.

Nevertheless, adding more than 90 new players to the prescribed formula does change things up a little. Rather than a traditional health bar, Chess Royale grants players three lives. The first round is something of a freebie, granting a risk-free opportunity to start building your army, but after that opening battle, every round you lose will cost one life. As players run out of lives, their avatars disappear, the 1 vs 100-style grid that charts progress through each game gradually turning to black as more and more armies are knocked out. It’s a ruthlessly efficient means of thinning the herd—whether it’s a close fight or an absolute rout, you’ll lose the same amount of health—but it also ensures that you won’t spend a frustrating half-hour rolling for the one unit that might turn your fortunes around.

Chess Royale's unique offering, aside from the 99-player game format, is the addition of spells. There are six spells available in a game that is randomized daily. These spells fall into three tiers, and each tier is unlocked after a certain number of players have been eliminated. Once a spell is purchased, it remains in effect for five rounds of combat. Purchasing another copy of the same spell refreshes the duration and increases the effect. Spells seem to have an impact (in theory) on the standard meta game, keeping things fresh from day to day. For example, one spell reduces all healing for both allies and enemies, which lowers the value of any healing strategies for the day.

A key feature in Might & Magic is the swift fluidity of each battle, with a full round said to last no more than 10 minutes, and with each individual fight being over in under 60 seconds - this is a great thing for those in a hurry or those wanting to get through games quicker, however, it can also hinder the experience, as having very minimal time to prepare troops can often find you incapable of finding the perfect synergies or team setup, which in turn results in a loss of health, putting you on the back foot for the rest of the match.

One of the big goals is to create relatively short matches. Ubisoft claims that you can “lose quick” or “win quick” with game sessions that last 10 minutes. That could help distinguish it from the auto battler crowd. Dota Underlords and Teamfight Tactics can have 30-minute matches or longer.

But Ubisoft is definitely chasing the trends. And that’s going to make it challenging to find an audience. Teamfight Tactics and Dota Underlords are already major hits with millions of players.

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