Developer Hi-Rez Studios has always said Paladins is more of a Team Fortress 2 clone than an Overwatch clone, since Overwatch is also a Team Fortress 2 clone, but regardless Paladins is as close to Overwatch as players on Nintendo Switch will get, and now it’s free.
Paladins is a team-based multiplayer shooter where players control colorful characters with over-the-top abilities. While the characters all play very differently, they each fall into general classes like Damage and Support, so it pays to have a well-balanced team. Different modes include a standard team deathmatch and more complex objectives like moving a payload or holding certain territories. Playing more matches also advances you through a larger player progression system.
This hero shooter idea is a great formula. It applies fantastical fighting game (or MOBA) style move variety and character mastery to a shooter, allowing for more interesting and dynamic characters. Using Buck’s massive leaps and shotguns requires different strategies than using Fernando’s charge attack and flamethrower or using Cassie’s dodge rolls and arrows. And as you play more with each character, you gain more ways to tweak their abilities and customize their loadouts. You can craft a very personalized playstyle.
Of course, your ambitions may be throttled if you choose to play the free version of Paladins. You’ll be locked to a certain set of heroes as well as random others that become free for a limited time. Meanwhile, certain rewards you earn you can’t access until you pay to open your battle pass or whatever. But the more egregious pay-to-win elements of earlier versions have been removed, and the $30 price for all heroes is totally reasonable. It feels weird to say, but if anything it’s nice there’s a free-to-play version giving players an unlimited opportunity to really feel what the game is like before fully jumping in (or before you have to start paying for Nintendo Switch online).
