Gigantic: Rampage Edition gives a failed live-service game a second chance

When video game developers and publishers constantly hunt for their own live service white whale, many of them fail. Even fewer of those get second chances like Gigantic is about to.

Originally developed by Motiga and published by Perfect World Entertainment, Gigantic was a hero-based multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game that was heavily marketed in the mid-2010s. Unfortunately, it failed to garner enough attention or make enough money for its developer and publisher for a variety of reasons, so it was shut down in 2018. That would be the end of the story for most live-service games, but Gigantic is getting another shot at life.

Since its closure, Perfect World Entertainment merged into Borderlands’ Gearbox Entertainment. Now, it’s working with Abstraction, a developer that’s mainly been a support studio on titles like Baldur’s Gate 3, to bring this multiplayer game back as a premium release, titled Gigantic: Rampage Edition. Ahead of its reveal today, I checked out the game early and found that Gigantic hasn’t lost any charm since 2018.

Big gains

Fans of hero shooters will be familiar with the core of Gigantic, as there’s a cast of 23 characters with customized loadouts and distinct abilities that can radically shift how you play. None of these characters had the time to enter the pop culture zeitgeist like Tracer from Overwatch or the Heavy from Team Fortress 2, so I forgot just how charming they all look and how vibrantly they were animated. Gigantic‘s original mode, called Clash, is still present, but the biggest draw of Rampage Edtion compared to the original is a new mode called Rush.

In this faster-paced mode, players rack up kills and collect energy on a map to gain enough power for an opportunity to attack their opponents’ Guardian. The first to take down the opposing team’s Guardian wins. It’s a snappier mode emphasizing combat over the tactical play and more intricate character leveling that Clash requires. Fans of Domination modes in other