Think fast. Be bold. Go Gigantic!
Gigantic is a free-to-play Third-Person Hero Shooter game developed by Motiga. It was originally released on July 20th, 2017 for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One.
Two teams of five heroes fight alongside a massive creature known as the Guardian, with the goal of taking over the battlefield by capturing control points, summoning creatures to defend them, and ultimately defeating the enemy team's Guardian.
The game is often called a MOBA, though it lacked many traditional elements of the genre, such as lanes and minions, and instead focused on fast-paced action.
Gigantic features a distinct cel-shaded art style and a colorful cast of playable characters, all with very unique appearances and playstyles. There were 22 playable heroes. A character sheet can be found here.
The original release of the game shuttered its servers on June 31st, 2018, following one final major content update on January 31st, 2018. However, the game received a new lease on life in the form of an Updated Re-release: ''Gigantic: Rampage Edition." It was released on April 9, 2024 for most of the major consoles and PC.
Tropes that apply to Gigantic:
- All There in the Manual: So far most of what's known of the game's lore has been revealed outside of the game itself.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Guardians, Leiran and Grenn, are a giant gryphon and a giant naga respectively. During the match the Guardians can be powered up by killing enemies or by collecting special power orbs. Once one team's guardian reaches full power, it will rampage across the map, attacking the enemy team and eventually striking down their Guardian so your team can move in and attack it.
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Yeti Cyclops, a variant of the Cyclops creatures. Being cyclopses, they only have one eye, which sets them apart from the typical Yeti. Like regular cyclopses, they create walls to block certain pathways from enemies, but they also create frozen areas on the ground and their attacks can freeze enemy heroes.
- Boss Battle: Levelled up Creatures can become this, as they usually have upgraded attacks and defenses. While level 1 creatures are fairly easy to kill given time and accuracy, Level 2 creatures will most likely kill any player that tries to solo them. However, if they are killed, they grant the killing team 20 Focus instead of 10.
- Bottomless Pit: The maps contain these, usually around the edges. Using abilities with knockback to push opponents into them is a favored tactic of many players.
- Bottomless Magazines: Ranged characters have continuous auto-attack functions similar to third-person MOBAs such as Smite with no ammo count. Some characters, such as Beckett, even use actual guns that they have to reload, but never need to leave the battle to find ammo.
- Breath Weapon: Grenn can shoot purple flames from his mouth. The Cerberi and Fire Drakes breathe fire, while Storm Drakes breathe lightning.
- The Clan: The noble houses, which also act as the game's teams. Multiple houses have been mentioned, though only two of them (House Aurion and House Devaedra) are currently playable. Each house is thematically different; for example House Devaedra is a house of sorcerers while House Tesserus focuses on science and technology. Much of the game's backstory stems from conflicts between the houses.
- Competitive Balance: Characters like Beckett, a human pilot with a jetpack and rifles, and Uncle Sven, a crazy old man alchemist, are on the same playing field as ancient Forest Guardians (Voden and Rutger) and a Trickster God (Oru).
- Averted with the Guardians: Normally, you are unable to damage them and if you stray too close to their area, they can (and will) deal large amounts of damage to you. To actually be able to damage and kill the enemy Guardian, you need to strengthen your Guardian enough for them to attack and make the enemy's vulnerable.
- Critical Hit: Critical hits work quite uniquely in Gigantic as they're not completely random and only deal 20% extra damage. The initial critical hit chance is low, but it gradually increases, up to 100%, if a player is able to consistently land their basic attacks, and decays rapidly if heroes are out of combat. Certain heroes have upgrades which increase their default critical hit chance or the damage they deal with critical hits.
- Cyclops: Cyclopses are a type of creature you can summon to defend your control points. They create stone walls around the point they're summoned on, blocking off certain pathways from enemy heroes
- Deflector Shields: When there are no enemies nearby, summoned creatures get surrounded by barriers that deflect all projectiles fired at them. This is to prevent ranged heroes from poking them down while they're unable to retaliate.
- Eye Beams: Leiran is capable of shooting lasers from her eyes.
- Dynamic Entry: Because of the high amount of mobility, almost every Hero can enter fights from jumping or diving in or from sneaking up and ambushing, and some characters can even come from below the ground.
- Final Battle: When a match nears its end, the game enters a special end-game mode known as Clash. During Clash the Guardians move to the center of the map (or in the case of the Sanctum Falls map, to a special Clash arena), parts of the map's geography are altered, and heroes gain bonus abilities to increase their power for the remainder of the match.
- Flavor Text: Every hero, skin and Fortune Card has flavor text attached to it, usually revealing a small bit of the game's backstory.
- Hellhound: A type of summonable creature, Cerberi are three-headed canines that can detect enemy heroes and show them on your mini-map.
- Invisibility: Multiple heroes possess the ability to turn themselves temporarily invisible. Shadow Cerberi grant invisibility to allies who stand close to them. Invisibility isn't completely flawless however, and a subtle shimmering effect indicating the presence of an invisible hero can be seen if you look closely.
- Large-Ham Announcer: Both of the Guardians, as they serve as the announcers for their respective team, but Grenn in particular with his booming voice and bombastic lines.
- Limit Break: Focus abilities, the ultimate skills of the heroes, require a meter to be filled up before each use. The meter can be filled by dealing damage to enemies or killing them, but also by taking damage and dying.
- Our Gryphons Are Different: Leiran, the Guardian of House Aurion, is a five-story tall gryphon with Eye Beams.
- Plant Person: Bloomers, another type of summonable creature, are sentient plant creatures that can heal allied heroes as well as attack enemies.
- Regenerating Health: Heroes can regenerate health by staying out of combat long enough.
- Schizo Tech: The game features robots, modern firearms and jetpacks in an otherwise mostly low-tech fantasy setting. The technologically advanced House Tesserus seems to be a source of most of the game's higher tech.
- Snake People: House Devaedra's Guardian, Grenn, is a giant Naga.
- Spring Jump: Many characters have abilities like this, and they're instrumental in taking shortcuts and reaching high ledges. They can also be used to jump out of reach of incoming enemy heroes.
- Sprint Meter: Characters have a stamina meter which is consumed by jumping, dodging or sprinting while in combat, and will recover after you stop all stamina-consuming actions for a few seconds. When your stamina runs out you'll be unable to sprint and will be limited to slow and clumsy dodge animations, though you can still use your abilities, jump and attack normally.
- Status Effects: Gigantic probably has the most unique status effects of any MOBA, to the point where almost every character has a unique status effect.
- Burning, Bleed, Shock, and Poison all deal damage over time. Bleed ignores the target's armor while Poison also reduces incoming healing by 50%.
- Mega Shock deals the damage over time of regular Shock, as well as dealing a large amount of damage to the target after a short delay.
- Slow reduces a character's movement speed. Cripple does the same but the effect is generally stronger, and the target's jump height is also reduced.
- Freeze both reduces movement speed and deals damage over time.
- Cracked Armor lowers the target's defense and deals damage over time. Broken Armor is the same effect but stronger.
- Weakness reduces the target's damage output for a short period of time.
- Curse prevents affected characters from receiving buffs.
- Knockback applies a directional force to the target, pushing them away.
- Interrupt disrupts the target's current action (such as channeling an ability).
- Daze prevents targets from attacking, using their abilities or sprinting.
- Immobilize prevents movement but the target can still attack and use their abilities.
- Stun prevents the target from taking any action for a short period of time.
- Launch knocks the target into the air and applies a short stun.
- Purge removes all currently existing buffs on the target, such as bonus damage.
- Tarot Motifs: Known as Fortune Cards, these are challenges you can complete for rewards. Completing the task on the cards grant you Prestige and Crowns. Completing sets will grant you Rubies (the premium currency) as well. Some challenges are in-line with the theme of the card (for example, to complete The Hermit, you have to win matches while solo queuing).
- While the game features the Major Arcana, alongside are custom cards that represent the heroes of Gigantic as well. You have to use the appropriate hero to complete these cards.
- Total Party Kill: If an entire team is killed, they will be punished with an additional time penalty added to their respawn timer, accompanied by a disappointed voice line from the team's Guardian.
- When Trees Attack: The adult Bloomers, which look like trees with arms and eyes, attack enemy heroes who wander too close to them.
- Those Magnificent Flying Machines: The heroes arrive on the battleground aboard winged airships, and re-spawn on them whenever they fall in combat.
