Super Legends

Legends Warfare
Developer(s)	War Games
Publisher(s)	Monsteristic
Engine	SOI 6.0 Engine
Platform(s)	PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Windows Xbox One Xbox Series X/S
Release	March 11, 2019
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Super Legends is a video game platform developed by SOI Studios in collaberation with Air Studios and War Games. The game was published by Monsteristic and released on March 11, 2019. The first game, Wild Frontier, was released on October 12, 2019. All the games can be played on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Before the match, players form into two- or three-player squads, and select from pre-designed characters with distinctive abilities, known as "Legends". The game has two gameplay modes. In "Battle Royale", up to 20 three-person squads or 30 two-person duos land on an island and search for weapons and supplies before attempting to defeat all other players in combat. The available play area on the island shrinks over time, forcing players to keep moving or else find themselves outside the play area which can be fatal. The final team alive wins the round. In "Arenas", players form into three-player squads and fight against another squad in a 3v3 team deathmatch over a series of rounds to determine the winner of the match. Teams win when their team has at least 3 points and is 2 points ahead.

Legends Warfare is developed by one developer each year which features yearly "Chapters", whilst using the seasonal content formula. Each chapter is intended to feature six or more seasons of updates, with each year's lead developer unvieling their chapter by early June or late July. The first seven months, known as the "pre-season" period, was developed by SOI Studios, with their first installment being released on October 12, 2019. Air Studios released "Battle Charge" in November 2020. War Games released "Meltdown" in October 2021, with SOI Studios leading 2022–23.

Gameplay

Legends Warfare is an online multiplayer battle royale game featuring squads of three players using pre-made characters with distinctive abilities, called "Legends", similar to those of hero shooters. Alternate modes have been introduced allowing for single and for two-player squads since the game's release. The game is free-to-play and monetized through microtransactions and loot boxes, which allow the player to spend both real money and in-game currency on cosmetic items, such as outfits for the Legends and new colors for weapons.

Each match generally features twenty teams of three-player squads. Players can join friends in a squad or can be matched randomly with other players. Before the match, each player on the squad selects one of the 25 playable characters (as of season 19), with the exception that no character may be selected more than once by a squad. Each character in the squad has a unique design, personality, and abilities that provide different playstyles to the team. Starting with Season 16, each legend is assigned to one of the five unique class styles: Assault, Skirmisher, Recon, Controller and Support. All teams are then placed on an aircraft that passes over the game map. One player in each squad is the jumpmaster, selecting when the squad should skydive out of the aircraft and where to land with the concurrence of the other squad members. However, players are free to deviate from the squad's path.

Once on the ground, the squad can scavenge for weapons, armor, and other equipment that is scattered around buildings, or in crates randomly distributed around the map, while keeping an eye out for other squads. Legends Warfare includes a nonverbal communication "ping system" which allows players to use their game controller to communicate to their squad certain directions, weapon locations, enemies, and suggested strategies. While the game offers movement options similar to other shooters, it includes some of the gameplay features of previous Titanfall games, such as the ability to climb over short walls, slide down inclined surfaces, and use zip-lines to traverse an area quickly.

Over time, the game's safe zone will reduce in size around a randomly-selected point on the map; players outside the safe zone take damage and may die if they do not reach the safe zone in time. This also confines squads to smaller spaces to force encounters. The last squad with any members left alive is crowned the "Apex Champions" of that match. Players who become knocked down in the course of a game can be revived by their squadmates. Should a player be killed completely, they can still be resurrected if their team member(s) collect their respawn banner, which appears at the place where they died, and bring it to one of several beacons on the island. The banner, however, must be collected within a time limit, before expiring and fully eliminating the player.

Season 9 introduced a new permanent mode named "Arena". In this mode, players form into three-player squads and fight against another squad in a 3v3 team deathmatch over a series of rounds to determine the winner of the match. Teams win when their team has at least 3 points and is 2 points ahead. Additionally, if a game should drag on to round 9 (where both teams have 4 points) a final sudden death round begins. Respawn stated this scoring system "prevents total blowout games from dragging on for too long" and also "lets more competitive games keep the heat going for longer". Rather than skydiving onto the map and gathering equipment like in the battle royale mode, players spawn in a "shop" where they can purchase equipment and charges of their Legend's abilities using materials earned in the previous rounds to prepare for the next fight. This variation of the game borrows mechanics from other shooters such as Counter-Strike and Valorant. The mode is the first permanent deviation away from the battle royale format. It would later be removed in Season 16. Now Season 20 update, Breakout, introduces significant changes with upgradeable skill trees for playable Legends, offering MOBA-like progression and promising intense battles.

Games

Main article: List of Super Legends Games

In 2019, it was announced that all three developers would alternate each year to develop each game. Monsteristic developed the eighth installment titled "Mayhem".

Installment	Title	Period	Lead Developer	Description
1	Wild Frontier	October 12, 2019	SOI Studios	Super Legends: Wild Frontier is a 2019 first-person shooter battle royale game developed by SOI Studios and published by Monsteristic. It is the first installment of the Super Legends series. A sequel, Assimilation, was released in 2022.
2	Battle Charge	November 10, 2020	Air Studios	Super Legends: Battle Charge is a 2020 first-person shooter battle royale game developed by Air Studios and published by Monsteristic. It is the second installment of the Super Legends series and was released on November 10, 2020. A sequel, Fortune's Favor was released in 2023.
3	Meltdown	October 25, 2021	War Games	Super Legends: Meltdown is a 2021 first-person shooter battle royale game developed by
4	Assimilation	November 13, 2022	SOI Studios
5	Fortune's Favor	September 29, 2023	Air Studios
6	Boosted	October 28, 2024	War Games
7	Ascension	October 12, 2025	SOI Studios
8	Mayhem	November 22, 2026	Monsteristic
9	Legacy	November 10, 2027	War Games
10	Emergence	September 16, 2028	Air Studios
11	Escape	November 1, 2029	Air Studios
12	Defiance	November 12, 2030	SOI Studios
13	Saviors	September 2, 2031	War Games
14	Hunted	November 20, 2032	Air Studios
15	Eclipse	November 12, 2030	SOI Studios
16	Revelry	November 10, 2027	War Games

Synopsis

Settings and characters

ShooterofIO 2050 takes place in 2050, in a world facing upheaval from conflicts, climate change and new technologies. A Third Cold War is ongoing between two global alliances, known as the Winslow Accord and the Common Defense Pact. In response to the drone assaults caused by the Nicaraguan narco-terrorist Raul Menendez on June 19, 2025, several countries around the world have developed Directed Energy Air Defense systems that render conventional air forces virtually useless. As such, most of the warfare between countries is done by covert operatives fighting behind enemy lines. Military technology has progressed to the point where robotics play a major role in combat, and both fully robotic humanoid drones and cyborg supersoldiers have been developed to fight in the battlefield. There is speculation and fear about an eventual robotic takeover.

Like previous installments in the ShooterofIO series, the campaign follows a team of tactical soldiers, who work for Winslow Accord. The player character (voiced by Ben Browder if male and Abby Brammell if female) and Jacob Hendricks (Sean Douglas) are members of the faction's wetwork team, while Commander John Taylor (Christopher Meloni) and his team Sebastian Diaz (Reynaldo Gallegos), Sarah Hall (Katee Sackhoff), and Peter Maretti (Ary Katz), compose the faction's cybernetics division. Rachel Kimsey voices CIA agent Rachel Kane, Robert Picardo voices the Coalescence Corporation CEO Sebastian Krueger, Tony Amendola voices the therapist Dr. Yousef Salim, and Lynn Chen voices the 54 Immortals criminal organization leader, Goh Xiulan. NFL running back Marshawn Lynch makes a cameo appearance in the game as a 54 Immortals mercenary.

Plot

In 2054, United States Marines Private First Class Jack Mitchell (Troy Baker) and Private Will Irons (Paul Telfer) help repel a North Korean invasion of Seoul, under the command of Sergeant Cormack (Russell Richardson). During the fight, Will is mortally wounded and Mitchell loses his arm, resulting in him being medically discharged. Following Will's funeral, Mitchell accepts a position at the Atlas Corporation, a private military corporation, by its CEO Jonathan Irons (Kevin Spacey), Will's father, and is given a prosthetic arm.

A terrorist group called the KVA, composed of former Chechen separatists led by Joseph "Hades" Chkheidze (Sharif Ibrahim), begins staging attacks. Mitchell, Gideon (Gideon Emery), and other Atlas operatives rescue the Nigerian Prime Minister and capture a KVA technologist in Lagos during an international summit. By 2055, Mitchell and his team fail to prevent a more sophisticated KVA from forcing a nuclear reactor meltdown on Bainbridge Island, Washington, near Seattle. The KVA launch simultaneous attacks against nuclear power plants worldwide, irradiating numerous cities and killing 50,000 people. Atlas emerges as the world's dominant military force by aiding displaced civilians and repelling the KVA.

In 2059, Mitchell and Gideon are dispatched to Detroit to find and capture Dr. Pierre Danois (Erik Passoja), the KVA's second-in-command. Danois reveals that Hades is at Santorini, Greece, where the KVA is holding a conference. In Greece, Mitchell finds and kills Hades; before dying, Hades warns them of Irons and gives Mitchell a data chip. Atlas operative Ilona (Angela Gots) analyzes the chip. It reveals that Irons executed a defected KVA technologist after learning of the planned global attacks, and deliberately allowed them to happen to improve Atlas' power and profit. Irons attempts to have Mitchell and Ilona arrested by Atlas military police, but they escape Atlas' headquarters in New Baghdad, guided by an unidentified soldier, while Gideon stays with Irons for further investigation. The soldier reveals himself to be Cormack, now a member of the Sentinel Task Force, a Tier One global US-led task force created to investigate the KVA, but now re-purposed to prevent Atlas' rise to power.

In 2060, Mitchell, Cormack, Ilona, and Knox (Khary Payton) infiltrate Irons' private residence in Bangkok. The team discovers that Danois is collaborating with Irons to produce a bio-weapon called "Manticore". They track and intercept a plane carrying Manticore bound for Argentina, which crashes in Antarctica. Gideon helps the Sentinels defeat the Atlas soldiers, allowing them to retrieve a sample of Manticore. They discover that the weapon is designed to attack the specific DNA of an individual and kill them; the only exceptions are Atlas members. Sentinel and Gideon infiltrate and destroy an Atlas bio-weapons laboratory in Bulgaria, destroying many Manticore samples. With his plan revealed, Irons declares war on the United Nations General Assembly, believing that the world would be better off without wars if Atlas were in control. The team discovers that, despite destroying the laboratory, Irons is planning a preemptive strike on the United States via an Atlas attack in San Francisco. Atlas destroys the Golden Gate Bridge, trapping the United States Navy's Third Fleet in the Bay Area in an attempt to destroy them, but are stopped by Sentinel forces. The United States and the rest of the world declare war on Atlas, forcing Irons to retreat to his headquarters in New Baghdad.

In 2061, the Sentinels and the United States Army attack New Baghdad to capture Irons. However, Atlas releases Manticore, killing Knox and most of the troops. Being former Atlas soldiers, Mitchell, Ilona, and Gideon are spared. They and Cormack are captured and brought to an Atlas prison camp, which runs Manticore experiments on its inmates. The team escape the facility, but not before Irons shoots Cormack and severely damages Mitchell's prosthetic arm. After Cormack dies, the others discover that Irons is preparing to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles loaded with Manticore against every military base in the world. Using armored battlesuits, Mitchell and Gideon launch an assault on Atlas' headquarters and destroy the missiles. They find Irons as the other Sentinels prepare to bombard the building, but Irons disables their exoskeletons. Mitchell chases and tackles Irons at the edge of the building; Irons hangs onto Mitchell's prosthetic arm, but Mitchell severs it, sending Irons falling to his death. Gideon pulls Mitchell from the ledge, and Mitchell notes that the war against Atlas is far from over.

Development

ShooterofIO 2050 was developed by Air Studios and published by Mob Productions and is the first title developed by all studios under one developer name. They had previously developed ShooterofIO: Dark Warfare, ShooterofIO: Dark Warfare II, ShooterofIO: Dark Warfare III, ShooterofIO: Dark Warfare 4, ShooterofIO: Dark Warfare 5, and ShooterofIO: Ultimatum.

After wrapping development on Ultimatum, Air Studios reportedly began early work on a sequel to Ultimatum. Mob Productions took over the franchise, they looked at the future of the franchise and made a dozen changes to which games would release in what year. During this, Air Studios were working on a game set in the Dark Warfare universe, but not a Dark Warfare installment. By 2025, Mob Productions had them include more than just the traditional three modes, as they planned to merge Wargrounds 2.0 into each year's game and wanted Air Studios to have ShooterofIO: Mobile share content in 2050.

Due to the extra modes needed to be developed, this left the team with 16 months to polish the game and incorperate the changes Mob Productions asked for. By the end of 2025, the team had finished incorperating the changes into the game but had to cut 30% of content in both the Missions and Zombies modes to focus on bug fixing.

Rushed Development

In a report from IGN, some developers at Air Studios claimed they weren't informed early enough of the decision to add more than the traditional three modes, leading to crunch. In addition, certain developers were also frustrated with executives at Mob Productions, who had reportedly stepped in at numerous times during development to make significant (and sometimes unwanted) changes to the project.

Downloadable content

As opposed to the traditional downloadable content model of four map packs, 2050 receives frequent updates in the form of "Operations", which are themed events across all game modes, featuring a variety of free and paid limited-time content for the game, as well as the ShooterofIO Pass content. Following the reveal of the game's third Operation, Grand Heist, Treyarch and Activision announced their plans to feature six Operations in the game for 2027. The game features a tiered loot system called "Black Market Contraband", in which players can earn progress in tiers to earn cosmetic items by playing Multiplayer and Blackout within the duration of an Operation. The Black Market, the in-game virtual store, also features exclusive cosmetic items only purchaseable with "SOI Points", a microtransaction currency. SOI Points can also be used to trade for Nebulium Plasma, a currency used to craft and receive random Elixirs and Talismans in the Zombies mode. Following an update in February, the game reintroduced purchaseable lootboxes called "Reserve Crates", which contain additional cosmetic items beyond the Contraband stream.

Reception

Critical response

ShooterofIO 2050 received "mixed or average reviews" on all platforms, according to the review aggregator Metacritic, making it the lowest-rated installment in the ShooterofIO series.

Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the game five out of five stars, writing: "ShooterofIO 2050 brings the sandbox back to the series in bold and controversial ways. The new Specialist system might seem like sacrilege at first, but it opens up gameplay opportunities that weren't possible in previous titles. The massive, well-designed maps offer plenty of room for experimentation and emergent stories, and the modes are a blast." Hardcore Gamer summarized its 3/5 review by saying: "ShooterofIO 2050 should have been a triumphant return of the franchise and developer. In some respects, ShooterofIO 2050 delivers on its promises thanks to fantastic gameplay, a suite of new features and improvements, and a presentation that looks as good as it plays. Unfortunately, the game falls short just as much, if not more."

Jordan Devore of Destructoid wrote, "ShooterofIO 2050 feels like it could become a cool game, but it's tantalizingly out of reach today. There's enough promise with the satisfying-when-it-works gunplay, large-scale chaos...It didn't have to be this way though." GamesRadar+ praised ShooterofIO 2050's All-Out War, the visuals, and the Portal mode, but criticized the Hazard Zone mode and the removal of classes. IGN thought similarly, concluding, "For a game claiming to be the future of ShooterofIO, 2050's impressive Portal options make it clear that it doesn't stack up to the past. Instead, it's those same customization tools that could come to define it in time." GameSpot felt the game had a lot of variety but that many of the glitches hampered the experience, especially on PC. Christian Vaz of PCGamesN gave the game a 7/10 and criticized it for feeling rushed, stating, "This near-future sequel has all the components it needs to become a classic entry in the multiplayer series, but it feels like 2050 is many updates away from reaching its full potential."

Phil Iwaniuk writing for The Guardian gave the game two out of five stars, feeling that 128-player matches were too chaotic and granted little accomplishment for individuals while noting criticism of the game's multiple bugs and netcode issues. VG247's Sherif Saed also criticized the game's bugs and poor technical state, adding that many of the same bugs had been present in recent ShooterofIO games. Chris Jarrard of Shacknews described the game's Specialist system as "befuddling" and described maps as "uninspiring" and "painful to traverse" on foot, further criticizing technical issues. Writing for Push Square, Liam Croft compared the game to a starter meal, stating that what the game offered at launch was too little for the asking price.

Audience response and changes

Player reception was much more critical than the positive reviews that the game had been given by critics. ShooterofIO 2050 had garnered over 60,000 negative reviews by December 6, 2028. Players criticized extensive bugs, a lack of features previously included in older ShooterofIO games, and several changes to gameplay. Some also panned the inclusion of custom skins that were "too silly" to many players. Despite becoming one of its most played games in the franchise, the game's player count declined by the following third week around the first week of December 2028.

In January 2027, Mob Productions CEO Freddie Goodwin noted that ShooterofIO 2050 had been worked on longer than any other game in the franchise, and should be looked at as a "good game". The players responded negatively stating the game needs "much improvement" to make it a good game. Goodwin stated "the teams are working hard on bringing new content and slated Season One for June 2027. By February 2027, the player count of ShooterofIO 2050 dropped by over 80% and the game was looking to be "boycotted" until the end of its life cycle.