REVIEW: ‘Gigantic: Rampage Edition’ Just Isn’t Enough (PC)

Gigantic was originally a hero shooter that went into open beta in 2015 by developer Motiga. With a colorful cast of characters, a mix of MOBA elements, and a $0 price tag it tried to establish its own foothold in the shooter market. The developers updated and refined the game for a full release in 2017. Despite building a cult following, Gigantic struggled to maintain popularity amongst other hero shooters like Overwatch, Paladins, and Team Fortress 2. Now, in 2024, Gigantic has been given a second shot with the release of Gigantic: Rampage Edition from Arc Grames and Abstraction.

The core gameplay of Gigantic is preserved in Rampage Edition. Players face off against one another in teams of five, each choosing a different character from an extremely varied cast. There is a tall, thin necromancer, a lizard fire wizard, and a mad rotund alchemist, to name only a few. Each character is packed with personality and their own playstyle, thanks to a kit of attacks and abilities.

Each hero in Gigantic: Rampage Edition is also sorted into a different role to help teams balance their compositions. They are split into ranged DPS, melee DPS, support, and frontline (read: tank). Splitting characters into roles is a great way to help guide players toward what they should do during matches. However, some characters are sorted in ways that don’t feel fully accurate.

Take Xenobia, for example. She is a snake-woman with a basic attack that heals her and various debuff and control options, like throwing enemies into the air, breaking their armor, or slowing them down. One can spin utility skills like slowing enemies as a support feature, but it feels weird not giving her healing other than for herself. There aren’t too many discrepancies like this in the cast, but the ones there threaten to act as barriers of entry for a shooter with a steeper learning curve than many.

The steep learning curve comes from Gigantic‘s complexity. The game’s MOBA influences shine especially strong in its combat. Time to kill is extremely high, and teams have to coordinate their efforts. This carries with it a particular flow to team fights. Teams push and retreat as units, waiting for small gaps in the others’ play to exploit. As fans of MOBAs know, it is exhilarating once one understands what is all happening and their role to play in it. But, before then, it can be overwhelming and make one feel powerless in the grand scheme of a match.

Complexity also comes from the uniqueness of Gigantic’s game modes. Its primary mode is Clash. Clash sees teams fighting one another over objectives that spawn at the center of maps that must charge once controlled. After fully charging, a member of your team has to hold a button to interact with the objective and retrieve power from it. Once your team has built up enough power, the giant mascot for your team, known as your guardian, activates and attacks the opponent team, pinning them down and revealing a weak spot.

Your team then has a limited window of time to attack that weak spot while the opposing team defends it. Players win by reducing the enemy team’s guardian’s health to zero. It is an engagingly unique structure for a match, but unfortunately, it is easy for one team to build up momentum and dominate the other for an entire fifteen to twenty-minute game.

Rampage Edition will for sure be a treat for fans of the original release, but what is different for the new release? The biggest change is its monetization. Rampage Edition eschews the game’s original free-to-play approach funded with microtransactions by instead giving everything to players for $20 upfront.

The new release also introduces some great quality-of-life features like a toggleable auto-level feature that takes care of leveling up your character during matches through player builds. As for actual new content the offerings are much slimmer. There are two new maps, two characters, and a new fast-paced mode called Rush. The new content is a welcome addition for sure, but it is disappointingly little for a title attempting to come back from the dead.

In the end, Gigantic: Rampage Edition is a valiant effort, and it is always great to see fans of a series or game get to revisit it. However, there’s fear that what it offers is far too little to entice many players who aren’t fans. At launch, it only has two modes, limited lore offerings that unlock via completing challenges, and some skins for each hero that are predominately palette swaps.

These issues are only exacerbated by server struggles and an infuriating matchmaking system that kicks you out of the queue if a single player rejects jumping into the match. These issues may get ironed out eventually, but what is on offer in Gigantic: Rampage Edition doesn’t feel like quite enough to keep it around for good this time.

Gigantic: Rampage Edition is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.