Blockchain gaming studio Xoilium has announced that their second Web3 game, Rebel Bots: Epic War, is now officially live on mobile devices for Android and iOS via the Play Store and App Store respectively.

What Is Rebel Bots: Epic War?

Rebel Bots: Epic War is a free to play PvP-focused RTS featuring tactical gameplay similar to Clash Royale.

Each 1v1 match sees both players fortified with 2 side towers while attacking each other’s Commander unit. This Commander can be controlled and ordered to attack the opponent’s units and buildings. If you lose the Commander though, you lose the match.

Winning a match is rewarded with a free Loot Chest that you can unlock in the main menu screen. There are different types of chests and each takes a certain amount of time to unlock, and may contain the game’s standard in-game currency, Gold, alongside various cards. Cards can be upgraded to higher levels, boosting some of their stats such as hit points, damage per second and more. Upgrading requires using a certain number of Gold, with more Gold needed the higher the level in question.

Units

Over time you’ll unlock a variety of unit cards to place in your battle deck. Players can unlock a total of 55 cards at the time of writing, while the deck can include a total of 8 cards, which doesn’t count the Commander. During a match, you can have 4 cards in your hand at the same time, with each having a certain, let’s say, Mana or Energy cost, with the resource regenerating over time.

You can also unlock various Commanders divided into Robots and Humans, but also split into different classes, with each Commander having their own special ability to make tactical use of in challenging strategic battles. When you ‘unlock’ a new Commander though, you still need to pay with Gems to fully unlock the character and make it usable in the game.

Units are categorized by rarity and type. Specifically, you can unlock Ground Units, Air Units, Defense cards (such as Bunkers) and Support cards (e.g. Airstrike). This means that certain Units and Commanders can’t attack Air Units, requiring you to have an appropriate counter to the opponent’s cards in your deck.

As you play in the main PvP mode, you get to rank up and unlock new arenas to make matches also feel visually different. Ranks determine which new cards and Commanders you can unlock.

Gems, Rebel Coins & Battle Pass

As is typically the case with free to play mobile games, Gems are the game’s premium currency that can be bought through in-app purchases. To get them free, it looks like you’ll have to go through the game’s daily bonus login system in order to eventually reach one of those days that award Gems. They can also be earned by progressing through a free Battle Pass.

Rebel Coins is another in-game currency but one which can’t be bought. It can be earned from prize pools allocated to tournaments and league seasons, and used for buying tower skins to give them a stylish look. While no official details are given, given the way it’s being distributed, it is not far-fetched to assume that the team will eventually give players the option to convert Rebel Coins into on-chain tokens in the future, either as the same token or some other one, such as the $RBLS token used for the studio’s first game, Xoil Wars.

The Battle Pass consists of a free and Premium tier, with the latter unlocked by paying with Gems. In any case, players progress through these tiers by completing diverse standard, weekly and Commander missions, which can range from upgrading 3 cards and killing 500 Infantry units to using Gems to open a chest early and winning 5 battles with a specific Commander.

Currently priced at 500 Gems, the Season 24 Premium Battle Pass contains unique chest rewards alongside Gold and Rebel Coins, while the free tier consists of Gold, Gems and chests of varying rarity.

Tournaments & Leagues

Next to the standard gameplay, you can also participate in daily tournaments and leaderboard-based seasonal leagues. As of writing, the current league season is Hero League for Season 24, which features a prize pool of 5000 Rebel Coins for the top 10 players. To be eligible for this prize pool and potentially other rewards such as Gems, you need an active Premium Battle Pass. The daily tournaments challenge players to top the rankings by doing a certain task, such as destroying the highest number of tank units. These competitions also come with a prize pool of Rebel Coins, plus Gold, and aside from ranking in the top 4, an active Premium Battle Pass is needed here as well.

NFTs

If you want to get into the blockchain side of things (or rather, prepared for what may come in the future), once you finish the tutorial, the game will give you the option to connect your Immutable Passport. Players who have been previously airdropped NFT Loot Crates (which have collection pages on Sphere and TokenTrove) can thus open them in-game to get Gold and cards.

Aside from these assets, there doesn’t seem to be any earnable NFTs, and it currently remains unclear if there will be any digital assets aside from the airdropped ones in the future, as this seems to be more of a Web2-focused title, unlike the franchise’s flagship play to earn Axie-like game, Xoil Wars. Based on messages in the official Discord server though, players can certainly look forward to some Web3 features arriving over time.

Social Features: Friends & Clans

When it comes to social features, players can invite and add friends as well as set up and join clans. You get rewarded with Gems, Gold and chests for inviting friends that finish the tutorial. Anyone on your friend list can be challenged to a friendly match, which is a great way to have fun and test out various decks and strategies. Once you reach level 6, you can set up your own Clan, or join any public ones instead. Each guild has its own chat to send messages and game-specific emotes to, and you can offer up a friendly duel to members by choosing the battlefield and match type. Though only 1v1 is currently available, it looks like the developers are planning on adding 2v2 in the future.