Much has been said about the similarities between Guardians, the new area-control card game, and multiplayer hero-shooter video game Overwatch. Whether you spot a peculiar resemblance between the winged Valkyrie in Guardians and Overwatch’s flying healer Mercy or the description of Whiplash sounds a bit like a certain speedy Brit, it is obvious where the game’s inspiration came from.
While this has certainly raised eyebrows, the idea of a hero-based card game, where each character comes with their own set of abilities and a special ultimate power, is completely plausible. So, leaving the originality of the theme and its heroes to one side, let’s divert the focus to the actual gameplay. Unfortunately, it also fails to impress, being completely competent but entirely unexciting.
In Guardians, players choose three different heroes, each with individual decks, and fight over a series of slightly generic futuristic-looking locations. Heroes either deal their base damage or gain additional powers through cards that can be played as one of three actions each turn. It is clear that there was intent for heroes to create combos by chaining abilities; to an extent that works, but lacks a significant enough effect on the overall course of each match. This is mainly because the cards’ abilities land in a middle ground; some of them are no doubt useful during the fight, but they are also entirely bland and not a single card stands out.