MOBA Games, Ranked

Released by Riot in 2009, it became the world's most-played PC game and its 2019 Worlds finals drew tens of millions of concurrent viewers. Its ecosystem now spans an Emmy-nominated show (Arcane) and multiple spin-off games.

Valve's 2013 sequel to the original Warcraft III mod hosts The International, which in 2021 offered a crowdfunded prize pool over $40 million, the largest in esports history. It's revered for punishing mechanical depth.

Tencent's 2015 title is one of the highest-grossing mobile games ever, reportedly surpassing $10 billion in lifetime revenue, and routinely tops 100 million daily active players in China.

A dominant force in Southeast Asian esports, its M-series World Championship and SEA Games appearances draw massive regional audiences. It reached over one billion downloads.

Blizzard's 2015 entry mixed heroes from Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo with shared team XP and no items, a genuinely fresh take. Blizzard scaled back development in 2018, ending its esports push.

Hi-Rez's 2014 game reinvented the genre from a behind-the-back perspective using mythological gods, and sustained a real esports circuit with its Smite World Championship. A full sequel, Smite 2, launched into early access in 2024.

Tencent's international adaptation of Honor of Kings, it featured as a medal event at the 2018 Asian Games demonstration and 2019 SEA Games. It never matched the original's Western traction.

The Warcraft III custom map that codified the modern MOBA formula in the mid-2000s and directly inspired both League of Legends and Dota 2. Its influence dwarfs its player-friendliness today.

Valve's 2024 early-access hero shooter fuses MOBA lanes and creeps with third-person gunplay, and peaked above 170,000 concurrent players on Steam during its invite phase. It remains unfinished but buzzy.

The 2021 free-to-play collaboration between The Pokémon Company and Tencent's TiMi studio simplified the formula with scoring goals and short matches, surpassing 30 million mobile downloads within its first week. It's polarizing among genre purists.

S2 Games' 2010 title was a faithful, unforgiving recreation of DotA with strong matchmaking for its era, but faded against League and Dota 2 and shut down its official servers in 2022.

Stunlock's 2017 game stripped away lanes and creeps for pure team arena duels, earning cult praise for its combat. Its small population and a stalled battle-royale spin-off limited its reach.

Super Evil Megacorp's 2014 game was an early showcase for high-fidelity touchscreen MOBAs and even featured in an Apple keynote. It couldn't sustain its audience and shut down in 2021.

Ronimo's 2012 game reimagined the MOBA as a cartoonish 2D platform-brawler, a genuinely inventive twist. Its niche format kept it from serious competitive relevance.

Epic's ambitious third-person MOBA reached open beta in 2016 with striking Unreal Engine 4 visuals, but Epic shut it down in 2018 and gave its assets away free after pivoting to Fortnite.

Ninja Theory's 2020 4v4 melee arena game launched to mixed reviews and thin player counts, and the studio ended development in early 2021, less than a year after release.

Electronic Arts' 2013 beta tried to challenge League with a role-based 'shaper' system, but EA pulled the plug in late 2014 and shut its servers down in early 2015 before a full launch. It barely got a chance.

This 5v5 hero shooter suffered a troubled development and shut down in 2018, roughly a year after its July 2017 full release; it later returned as Gigantic: Rampage Edition in 2024.