Dungeon Defenders 2 loses its MOBA and focuses on tower defense

Defending Dungeons all the time

Originally, Dungeon Defenders 2 was going to be a League of Legends-style MOBA. Makes sense, right? MOBAs are all the rage nowadays, and people love Dungeon Defenders--let's spread some of that delicious chocolate onto this chocolate peanut butter sandwich! But after months of development and a full-fledged beta test, the developers decided to gut the MOBA aspects from the sequel and focus on making a game truer to the original. Now, it's back to the same tower defense / hack-and-slash formula fans loved, with changes that should make for a much bigger, better experience. Oh, and free-er--it's going to be free-to-play. That's important, too.

Every area of the gameplay's been touched, from the tower placing (which is easier than ever) to the combat (which is combo-based, instead of feeling like Dynasty Warriors). We played as the Squire, who felt like a true action star as he slashed at enemies and bashed them with his shield. Just as before, each class has its own combat abilities as well as different towers, which can be mixed and matched with others to create wonderful, monster-obliterating synergies.

Placing towers that pop enemies into the air so they can be hit by air towers, for instance, helped us defend our base from both orcs and harpies. We also found that ice meshed well with cannon, smashing frozen enemies in a brutal display of magical might. It was damn fun, and we were heartbroken that we couldn't take home with us after playing it. It's going to be a little while until it's released--which is fine, considering it was only rebooted a few months ago. We'll be sure to keep you posted as this awesome hybrid cooperative tower defense hack-and-slash nears its spring 2014 release.

Check out the following slides for additional images and more information.

The levels look much larger than they were in the original.

Some areas only open up once your team has failed to protect an objective.

Each class has its own special moves, as well as its own towers.

Things got chaotic as more enemies attacked--but they also got more fun.

The mage can toss enemies into the air, setting them up perfectly for anti-air towers.

The visuals are clean, and the game has a very nice style.