Supervive, a flashy MOBA battle-royale, will open its doors at Steam Next Fest. It already has the Blizzard/Riot polish of its expat developers.

Supervive is now available for a limited time as part of Steam Next Fest. It will be playable until October 21 on matchmaking servers located in Europe, North America and Asia. It was formerly known as Project Loki. Theorycraft, a studio made up of former Riot and Blizzard devs, is trying to carve its own niche in the MOBA market.

I've played some and I'm really impressed with what I've seen. I'm experienced enough in MOBAs that I know I'm 500 hours away from a critical take on this game (they're complicated), but I'm still astonished by what I have seen. Its character design, visuals, animations, and sound effects are all polished up to a mirror shine. The blend of Blizzard and Riot art styles is almost uncanny and the animation is superb. These characters are so well designed that I can't help but think 'yep! That's an Overwatch,' for good or bad.

It's trying to keep the battle-royale formula--something that I'm not a big fan of--fast-paced and action-heavy. You can finish five to six matches in an hour depending on how quickly your character is destroyed.

Supervive fills the void left by Battlerite, a game that I still mourn after it (ironically), tried to do a Battle Royale version and failed. I'm actually feeling the same malaise as before. I preferred Battlerite's Arena mode and, while Supervive has a 4v4 fight, it's not the main focus.

Supervive's combat is similar to Battlerite in that it takes the usual MOBA team fights, and turns them into pure skillshot flex offs. The main difference is that you can jump and glide across chasms by double-tapping the button. If you are hit while gliding you will be punished. You can either be spiked in the ground, or if there is no ground, you will die. It is therefore risky to escape an engagement by island hopping. This game is full of movement and jukes.

Matches follow standard battle royale beats. You have to kill creeps and unlock vaults while staying within an ever-shrinking cloud. There are a lot of different objectives. You can visit specific nodes, called Oracles, to see where team battles are. You can also visit respawn beams to revive your entire team from afar (though this will alert others to your existence). There's also a train that is doing laps and has a lot of loot. And each match has its own modifiers. Theorycraft gives players a reason to bump into one another and keep things moving.

It will take you a few dozen games to become familiar with the game and understand what's happening. This is not a complaint, but more of a description of how the genre works. Supervive has a rich metagame with plenty of room for play.

How does it all control? Swimmingly. It's rare that a game is this frictionless so early in development - it's almost too much. Supervive is so fluid that it can feel like you are trying to control a ferrari on an icefield. It's for the play-making, twitch decision wunderkinds that appear in League of Legends highlight videos.

This is especially true for a new player like myself who is trying to understand the MOBA/battle royale elements. There are items, and presumably a meta-game. But I don't know where I would find the time to absorb all of this information without consulting books, forums or YouTube guides. The smart loot feature allows you to grab all the upgrade items that your fallen enemies have left behind. However, it is all very intimidating. It's also a bit difficult to see what an item is capable of, since your mouse will also move the camera.

It's a mess of information if you don’t take it slow. This may sound like criticism. The game does not do a super job at teaching much, aside from a few tutorials. But that's a hallmark of this genre. It would be like complaining about a high-tier strategic game because there are a lot of options.

I'm here to let you all know what's in store. Supervive is the perfect game for you if you enjoy the chaos and pro-gaming style of high-level MOBA games. Supervive is a complex, octane game that's already flourishing. It's doing what it sets out with a dab hand professional flourish.