Heroes of the Dark Review

A World of Darkness

It’s easy to see the appeal of vampires, especially the sophisticated blood-suckers like the protagonist of Gameloft SE’s Heroes of the Dark. They get to be young and beautiful forever at the low price of drinking blood and not going out in the daylight. Sure, they’re occasionally locked in an endless supernatural war, but that’s part of the fun in Gameloft SE’s gacha MMO strategy game.

Gameloft’s Heroes of The Dark takes place in the steampunk fantasy world of Tenebris, where Humans, Vampires, and Werewolves battle for supremacy. Twenty years before the game takes place, the Vampire High Council partially destroyed the planet’s moon hoping to finally defeat their lupine nemesis. Instead, it showered Tenebris in debris and plunged the entire world into twenty years of war. As an unintended side effect, Moon Dust also became a source of incredible energy, advancing technology by hundreds of years.

Players take the role of Birsha von Meremoth, a minor vampire lord who attempted to but failed to stop the Council’s plan. A former monster hunter revives him, and they join forces with a Werewolf warrior and Birsha’s haughty but brilliant sister. Together, they set out to build an alliance powerful enough to oppose the Council. While players can recruit up to 29 heroes, these four are the protagonists of Heroes of The Dark’s campaign. The story mode sees our heroes traveling the world searching for the Council’s hideouts and battling their vast array of minions. 

Men and Monsters

Each of the game’s 29 heroes exude visual personality, and there are many different designs on display. Vampires are a mix of porcelain-skinned aristocrats and freakish bat monsters. Werewolves, meanwhile, exist on a spectrum from feral beasts to guys and gals with a bit of extra body hair. Finally, humans are a reasonably varied mix of fantasy and steampunk archetypes. No one stands out as remarkably original, though each hero is well modeled and animated. I wouldn’t have minded some extra backstory for each character, but that’s a problem with many other gacha-style games.

The titular Heroes of the Dark fall into three races and six classes. There’s little mechanical difference between Vampires, Humans, and Werewolves, though each requires a different currency to upgrade. Those are Blood Shards, Battery Shards and Purified Shards, respectively. Players manufacture all four at their Mansion from Moon Dust, which they gain from completing quests and challenges.

The six classes are a bit more distinct from each other. Brawlers are melee fighters that excel on the flanks but lack the durability to hold the center like Tanks. Assassins will attempt to ignore frontline heroes to attack the back ranks. These back-rank heroes include the Rangers, who specialize in targeting single enemies, and Nukers, who have powerful area-of-effect attacks. Finally, the Support’s specific role varies from hero to hero but includes healing, buffing and debuffing. Some Heroes also have Aura effects that buffs adjacent frontline.

Immortal Combat

Combat consists of five vs. five battles between two squads chosen by players or the AI. These formations consist of three heroes in the first line and two in the second. Generally, you’ll want to stick your Tank in the center and Brawlers or Assassins on the flanks, though the ideal formation is situational. Players can’t influence the engagement directly, so you’ll be relying on the AI to do the actual fighting.

Most battles play out the same whether they occur in the Campaign or PVE World Map. This means things can get repetitive as players grind for items and upgrade materials. However, things get a bit more interesting with Dungeons and PVP. The latter center around player-run guilds, which battle for resources and territory. Guild battles consist of multiple stages, with each player controlling a different wave of attackers or defenders. I thought it was a cool mechanic, though it’s hard to get enough people together outside of peak hours.

Meanwhile, players find basic Dungeons on the World Map, with the longer and more elaborate Catacombs opening later in the game. Each Dungeon or Catacomb is themed around a specific Race or Class, which receives buffs for the raid’s duration. The dungeon crawls were one hundred percent the best part of Heroes of the Dark. My most significant criticism here is that Gameloft SE didn’t just make the game a dedicated dungeon crawler.  

Overall, I liked Heroes of the Dark, though leveling can become a real grind. I’d also have preferred more ways to influence combat directly. While the battles are flashy and well-animated, they can get repetitive over time. Ultimately, it’s a well-made game that gacha fans will likely enjoy. However, don’t expect Heroes of the Dark to sell new players on the genre.