Between the hegemony of Overwatch since 2016, the recent release of Valorant, and the unforgettable failures of LawBreakers and Battleborn, the arrival of one more hero-shooter is a priori hardly exciting. But precisely, Rocket Arena is not really a hero-shooter like the others! Unlike all the titles we have just mentioned, for example, it does not offer a subjective view, the third-person view having been favored by the developers. In addition, the entire gameplay revolves around rockets, which are the only weapons available in the game. The combination of these two elements results in the presence of a dodge function rarely seen elsewhere and which allows, with the right timing, avoid enemy fire. In addition, the emphasis is particularly placed on mobility since each character has a basic triple jump, while the rockets are used to further extend the range of movements. It is thus very easy to perform a rocket jump by directing the shot downwards (without any risk of damage), or even a rocket climb by applying the same technique several times in a row on a vertical wall. These maneuvers are very easy to do, and the tutorial explains it all very clearly.
NI QUAKE NI FORTNITE
Another specificity of the game concerns the absence of real damage or even death strictly speaking, because the rockets do not hurt the adversaries, they are content to push them back. Rather than starting any life bar, touching a player actually raises a gauge called an explometer. The higher the level of this gauge, the further the victim will be propelled on the next shot received, which risks knocking them out of the arena. Moreover, when the explometer is full, the slightest shot received guarantees an immediate expulsion. It is therefore advisable to hide when our own explometer begins to be too full so that it can go down (which happens after eight seconds without being hit). However temporary it may be, each ejection from the arena is a real handicap for the team because the game focuses on three against three. The few seconds that a player's return animation takes therefore deprive the team of a third of its potential!
ROCKET SALAD
Hero shooter apart but hero-shooter all the same, Rocket Arena naturally offers us a gallery of characters with relatively specific abilities. There are ten heroes at launch, an eleventh being already announced for the first ranked season, itself scheduled for July 28. Each of these characters has a primary fire, a secondary fire and a special ability. The fat pirate Barbablast benefits from things like a bell shot, a charged shot and a shockwave, while the young Plink gets a quick shot at close range, a boomerang that ricochets off walls and a teleporter. Old Aristocrat Topnotch's arsenal consists of a bouncing grenade, air strike, and artillery barrage, while the mystic Mystine wields burst fire, shield, and a holographic twin with which she can instantly switch places. As for Flux, the young heroine planned for the first season and whom we have already been able to handle, she pushes the originality even further since she combines bouncing rockets with guidance, a "black hole cat" which advances slowly while increasing its size and damage, and an "ultimate" allowing it to temporarily hide in a parallel dimension. We are not going to give you the whole list here, but know that there is something for everyone and that you will necessarily find a character compatible with your way of playing, whether it is more offensive or defensive. To bring even more variety to the gameplay, it is possible to pick up boxes of random objects on the maps, in order to obtain a bonus to be triggered when desired (rocket magnet to deflect enemy fire, blindfold- ninja that improves dodging, bomb…). In addition, over the matches played, you unlock artifacts that provide different bonuses and that can be equipped in packs of three for each character. This eventually allows you to create builds based more on speed, or damage, or health, etc. It's hard to say if the developers will manage to balance all this in the long term, knowing that each new season should bring new heroes, new maps and new game modes.
THE SNOW ARENA
Currently, Rocket Arena already offers five different modes. The first of these is called KO and acts as the main mode, as it is the most competitive. The victory belongs quite simply to the first team having scored twenty points, ie having ejected an adversary twenty times out of the arena. The second is called ball-rocket and is inspired by football, since it involves recovering a ball on the field and bringing it to the opposing goal (which takes the form of a small circular area) . It is possible to keep the ball with you, but also to throw it, in order to score away or make a pass. The Treasure Hunt mode features a chest that must be kept as long as possible in order to collect gold coins. Small additional subtlety: after a while the chest "explodes" and coins appear everywhere on the map, the game then leaving us a few tens of seconds to pick them up. It almost feels like a platform game. The last competitive mode is the mega-rocket, and it puts forward an area capture principle, the area in question being determined by the explosion of a large rocket, which starts by ejecting all the players located too close to the point impact. Finally, Rocket Arena also offers us a PvE mode... which barely deserves this qualifier. It's a simple three-player cooperative mode, where you just survive against waves of enemies with relative artificial intelligence... This mode is hardly convincing, unlike rocketball and treasure hunt, which are likely to win the support of most players. In any case, they already have ours.
On the other hand, we regret the absence of any single-player campaign. This point is all the more distressing since the different heroes really have personality, and benefit from quality design and animations. Likewise, the world of Crater that serves as the setting for the game would have greatly benefited from a single-player campaign. As it stands, we don't care about the lore, and we just play on the different maps without feeling any particular attachment to this universe. However, Rocket Arena currently offers ten different maps, which can be used for each of the available modes. From the prehistoric and desert Refuge of Stompy to the lush jungle of the Temples of Jaaqua, passing by the snowy roofs of the Ice Fortress, we see the country. Underwater world and futuristic city also answer the call. Alas, the very colorful and cartoony artistic direction which works rather well with the heroes has convinced us much less with regard to the environments. They are rather pleasing to the eye, but we have more the impression of evolving in the decorations of an amusement park than in a real universe. 
More generally, the game is bathed in a very mainstream atmosphere that is too reminiscent of Disney standards and ultimately lacks personality. It also seems surprising that the game is paying (thirty euros for the standard editions, forty euros for the Mythic edition) while at times it takes on the appearance of free-to-play since it offers two types of currency ( rocket coins that you earn in matches, and rocket fuel that you can buy with real money). Fortunately, the pay-to-win is totally absent from the game (for the moment anyway…) since the shop only offers cosmetic items. Let's end on a final positive note: the crossplay feature allows Origin, Steam, PS4 and Xbox One players to participate in ecumenical matches if they wish!
