If you’ve been paying attention to video games for the past 10 or so years, you probably know how a MOBA works. Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas give players a selection of diverse heroes with a myriad of special abilities and throw them into combat with a squad of teammates. The only way to win is to work together to find the best ways for your heroes to work together and use them to overwhelm and contain your opponents.

Thetan Arena is no different, but it puts a cool blockchain twist on the proceedings. In this game, you have a selection of free heroes that you are gifted with, but you also have the ability to purchase other, more powerful characters as NFTs and add them to your collection. No matter how you get a hero, each one has its own fighting style and level of rarity. For instance, Raidon is a Anonymous mask-wearing assassin that is a “common” character, but there is also Meiko, “The Ghost Captain”, which is an Epic-rarity tank character.

There are over 25 characters in all, and each one is unique enough that there will be a Thetan hero for just about any playstyle preference. The actual combat gameplay is well-balanced, and each character is a viable choice to use in a match, at least at the beginning.

Players can give their heroes a variety of skills, ranging from a bubble of protection to a barrage of rockets and everything in between. There are a handful of these skills that are unlocked from the beginning, but you’ll need to spend some of the in-game currency, called Power Points, to gain access to the best ones.

Mixing and matching these skills with the base abilities of the heroes at your disposal is the backbone of Thetan Arena, and things only get better and more tactical when you get your friends in the mix. Trying to find synergies with random teammates isn’t necessarily impossible, but hopping on a Discord call and strategizing with a squad of your friends is intoxicating, and Thetan Arena’s design makes that not only possible but encouraged.

As of this review, Thetan Arena has quite a handful of game modes: Battle Royale, Tower Siege, Super Star, Deathmatch, and Custom Battle.

In the Battle Royale game mode, 12 players are placed on a battleground and must try to survive and become the last person standing. A ring-shaped border will appear and start closing in, eliminating anyone who is outside of it. By destroying supply boxes, players can get extra power points, and they can kill other players to stay alive.

In the Tower Siege game mode, players are divided into two teams and must try to bring down the opposing team's tower. Each team can collect items called "Battery" to summon a Siege Robot, which can damage the opposing team's tower. The game ends when one of the towers is destroyed, or if time runs out and neither tower has been destroyed, the team with the most tower health will win.

In the Super Star game mode, players aim to own the "superstar" and collect match points by picking up Point Stars that are produced by the "mother" Superstar. The team with the most match points at the end of the game wins. If one team has more than 50 match points than the other, the winner is declared immediately.

In the Deathmatch game mode, players try to eliminate as many other players as possible to earn points. The player with the most points at the end of the game is declared the winner. If a single player has more than 25 elimination points, the game will end immediately and they will be announced as the winner.

Finally, in the Custom Battle game mode, players can create their own game and invite friends to play with them. The host can choose the game mode, map, and number of players for the game.

Each of these is unique enough to justify its inclusion in the game, and Thetan Arena constantly receives updates from its developers that add content as well as enact balance changes.