League of Legendsįor a while it seemed like the battle royale genre had cemented around Fortnite and Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, and that no newcomer could break through. Or, more likely, you pick a hero and mess something up five minutes in, and your entire team gets angry because they know you just lost them the game. Players pick a hero and battle it out against the other team, competing to bring down the enemy base by out-maneuvering foes with skillful tactics. For the curious, though: Dota 2 is the successor to the WarCraft III mod DOTA, or Defense of the Ancients, the grandpappy of the whole genre. The people who’ve stuck with the genre all this time are pretty hardcore. If you’ve still never dipped your toe in the MOBA waters…well, it’s a bit hard to recommend now. That said, MOBAs still have a staggering number of users, and Dota 2 maintains the record for the largest esports prize pool ever, with The International 8 featuring a prize pool of $25.5 million in 2018. You don’t hear about them as often, and the cash-grab clones have mostly moved to battle royales.
It’s been well over half a decade since we first wrote this list, and MOBAs (Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas) have waned a bit in popularity-but not that much.
