7 Reasons to Play Robocraft

Robocraft, an early access, free-to-play game on Steam, is the most fun you’ll have all week. Developed by Freejam, Robocraft is a combination of Space Engineers, World of Tanks, and battle bots. Since Robocraft is still in late-alpha there are missing features, like a tutorial, and bugs, like falling through the planet, but overall it’s very polished and I often forgot that the game is still in alpha.

Here are seven reasons why you should drop what you’re doing and go play Robocraft right now:

1. When you start Robocraft you’re given a pre-built robot that can hold it’s own, which is nice so you can jump in and get a feel for how the game works. The controls are easy and intuitive, and, with a few exceptions, the game feels balanced. The robot you’re given only gets you so far though, eventually you’ll have to build your own.

2. As I blundered my way through building my first robot I struggled with clicking all the tabs until I realized that each tab has a keyboard shortcut that can be accessed from any screen during the building processes. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it speeds up the process greatly as you’ll find yourself switching between the screens often. The more I play, the more I’ve realized how incredibly handy this is, which is why I gave it it’s own section. You’ll thank me later.

3. There are three types of robots you can build. Land vehicles, hover crafts, and planes. Building your robot takes a lot of trial and error and can be frustrating, but gives you that much more satisfaction when you successfully make one that works. My first hovercraft flipped upside down and spun in circles. Luckily Freejam has included a practice mode which takes no time to jump in and out of. If you’ve played Space Engineers then you’ll be familiar with the building system in Robocraft. You’re given blocks from which you build your robot from. There are basic square blocks, turrets, radars, wings, and more. Starting out you’re only given tires, but as you progress you unlock more pieces from the tech tree with points you gain from winning matches. The best part of this game is that you build your robot from scratch so when you’re successful in a match, it’s because of your skills. You didn’t just pick the best robot, you built the best robot.

4. The combat in Robocraft is fun, unique, and different every time you play because of the variety of bots people make. Each block is treated as a separate piece which means that your robot will fall to pieces based on where you’re hit. Often I’ll find myself with just a chassis and two wheels, guns blasted away, running from rampaging murder bots while hoping my team can still win without me. This adds strategy to shooting wings off planes or taking out tires, but gives you motivation to cover your mode of transportation with protection. You’ll quickly find out that if your robot flips over and you haven’t put in a counter measure, then you’re out for the battle. As you progress through the tech tree you’ll get access to bigger, more powerful weapons and armor. While some guns, like the rail gun, can be overpowered, even teams with multiple rail guns are quickly overrun by good teamwork.

5. The only gameplay right now is capture the base, where you sit on the enemies base to capture it. Matches can be very quick if each team rushes to the other base. One of the interesting aspects of Robocraft that has kept me interested as I play is that you can’t just simply win to get rewards. You have to survive, you have to participate, and you have to win. There are three types of currency: Galaxy Points(GP), which are the purchasable in-game currency; Robot Points(RP), which you gain from playing and are used to repair and to buy parts; and Tech Points(TP), used to progress through the tech tree. When you win you’re given RP and TP based on your performance. If you sit back avoiding combat and not capturing the base, you’ll get no points; this game doesn’t reward freeloaders. There are 4 ‘stages’ to capturing the base and you’re given Tech Points for each ‘capture’. You’re also given Tech Points for each kill. Unless you’re killed, then you’re given maybe one Tech Point out of pity, even if your team wins. This is the aspect of Robocraft that is most interesting to me, because it means that in order to progress through the game you have to actively participate in the game.

6. Queuing for battles is extremely easy. From the robot creation screen you simple press ‘b’ and are thrown into the queue, which, from my experience, takes about 5 seconds to find a match, and maybe 20 seconds before your driving your vehicle into battles of 8v8.

7. Robocraft is free. Did I mention that? You get all of this for FREE. It’s not a pay to win game, it’s a ‘pay to progress faster’. You can buy a premium account, which gives you 50% more rewards. There’s nothing in the game that you can get for money that you can’t get for free, it’s just slower.