Bear with me on this, but I adore how swordfighting works in Dune. Ubiquitous wearable sci-fi shields repel any attack that comes in too fast, so everyone has to learn this unique, overtly dance-like form of close-quarters combat where every thrust and parry is necessarily slow and considered. Picture it: careful judgments of your movements, weighing up the right time to strike, every measured jab part of a wider strategy that culminates in the kill.
MOBAs are like that. Both in the fights themselves, sort of, where probing lunges lead up to bursts of lethality, but more broadly in each match as a whole. They’re map-wide knife fights, where a thrust is a well-judged lane push and a parry a savvy item buy. At first, playing Smite 2 felt akin to watching on helplessly as my opponents repeatedly shoved their crysknives through my ribs. After 30 hours, it often still feels like that – but I am enjoying myself. Mostly. Despite Valve’s third-person elephant in the lane.
