Lords Mobile review – strategy-RPG perfection?

The kingdom has been splintered and dark times are upon us. It’s time for heroes to rise up, and for leaders to lead them. In Lords Mobile, the strategy-RPG from IGG, you’re just one of many players trying to answer that call, and whether you succeed will depend on much more than your resource-management skills. This is no ordinary strategy-RPG.

That’s because Lords Mobile has two very different, but inherently linked, experiences for players to master, bringing both PvP and solo elements to the table, as well as features cherrypicked from other genres.

The meat of the game is, of course, building up and defending your own “turf,” meaning a small parcel of land within a kingdom within a larger overall game world.

My Lord

Though you begin with only a castle to your name (not that that’s a bad thing to have as your lone possession), you quickly learn to build and level-up other structures to provide the food, stones, timber, ore, and gold one needs to keep a city and army growing.

Those armies are necessary because not every other player in the game has your best interests at heart. This is a game where it’s possible to go it alone, but there’s much more to be gained from joining a guild and teaming up with like-minded players.

Lords Mobile has plenty of easy to use social features, making it a snap to communicate with and assist fellow guild members. It also features easily comprehensible guild missions that you can complete together with other players.

Epic conflicts

There’s scope for truly epic conflicts with other guilds and kingdoms if that’s what you want out of the game, but it’s possible to enjoy a more sedate co-operative experience too.

That’s not to say that everything is multiplayer focused. Hero mode takes the leaders of your armies — individuals with their own skills and personalities — and turns them into characters you’d find in a normal action-RPG.

As they tackle their own PvE levels on their own map, they grow in power and can find weapons, armor, and other gear to use in a multiplayer setting while commanding troops in the field, allowing the two primary game modes to work together in a very organic and satisfying way.

Lords Mobile a joy to look at

There’s a lot to do in Lords Mobile beyond timer management (though there is plenty of that as well), and any time you log in it’s likely that you’ll find stuff to keep yourself occupied with, regardless of how long your gaming session turns out to be.

There’s also plenty of joy to be found in the charming art and animations. Even in something as simple as the profile screen for your avatar, you’ll find a hero constantly in motion and looking like he or she wants to charge right off the screen into battle. The overall look and feel of the game has certainly improved since it was first released, and there’s very little that is too cluttered or difficult to decipher.

All told, Lords Mobile is the type of game that just about anyone can jump right into and understand within the first hour of playing, and there’s enough content of both the solo and multiplayer variety that if you like what you find, you’ll have no lack of reasons to stick around. You can try it out for yourself on Google Play (and the App Store) now.