Dungeon Defenders II was originally being developed to launch with a new competitive player-vs-player mode modeled in the form of a MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) game. This week, apparently due to overwhelming fan feedback not in favor of the new approach, developer Trendy Entertainment announced that it has put the kibosh on turning the game into a MOBA. Good riddance, I say.
“We’ve been listening very closely to our community, getting feedback from fans of the first game on what they want to see in a sequel, and we realized we needed a shift in our development focus,” said Philip Asher, Marketing Director at Trendy Entertainment. “We had strayed from making the kind of game fans wanted and the kind of game we wanted to develop. So, we’ve nixed the MOBA-style of gameplay and other ‘extra’ features we were talking about and instead are making the sequel we all want to play. We’re improving everything we loved about Dungeon Defenders, one step at a time. First we’re going through the core gameplay experience; injecting more meaningful decisions and moments into the minute to minute gameplay that you’ll want to share with your friends. Then, in late October we’re going to kick off our first major community initiative to get fans involved in the development of the game, and start working with them to make the roleplaying and item systems as satisfying as possible.”
Development has been rebooted to focus strictly on making Dungeon Defenders II a true sequel to the awesome tower defense action-RPG first released nearly three years ago. With the MOBA ambitions dropped, the game will simply evolve on the core values of the original, beginning with a completely new mission structure, new traps, new defensive abilities, and revamped combat, item, tower placement and role-playing systems. The goal is to form a more synergistic relationship between combat and tower defense, as explained by the game’s Lead Content Designer, Daniel Haddad:
“Imagine dousing a crowd of enemies with oil and then the Apprentice’s flameburst tower hitting one of them with a flame bolt, lighting them all up! Or a trap launching an orc into the sky, only to be frozen and then shatter after crashing to the ground. We’re creating these synergistic systems as a way to allow players to discover and share new ways to play the game: whether it’s finding a new piece of gear that creates a whole new defensive strategy to a map or improving defenses in a way that makes you completely rethink your entire setup, we want the combat and roleplaying elements to shape how you defend Etheria.”
Dungeon Defenders II is scheduled for “soft launch” as a free-to-play PC, Mac and Linux game in spring 2014. Hit play below to watch the new teaser trailer from the game’s showing at Comic Con over the weekend.
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Matt landed his first gig in the video game review business writing for the now-defunct website BonusStage.com. After the sad and untimely close of BonusStage, the former staff went on to found VGBlogger.com. After a short stint as US Site Manager for AceGamez, Matt assumed full ownership over VGBlogger, and to this day he is dedicated to making it one of the top video game blogs in all the blogosphere.
Matt is a fair-minded reviewer and lover of games of all platforms and types, big or small, hyped or niche, big-budget or indie. But that doesn't mean he will let poor games slide without a good thrashing when necessary! 
A true sequel to this will go over well with all of the gamers in my house. My son and his friends have sunk countless hours into the original but have always been a bit gun shy on learning a MOBA.