Orcs Must Die: Unchained is the third installment in the Orcs Must Die! Series of games and is developed by Robot Entertainment for Windows and PlayStation 4. The game was released as a beta in 2014 and in its entirety on 18th April 2017 for Windows and 18th July 2017 for PS4.
Unchained is a tower defence game where a player must defend a magic core while the opponents are trying to reach it. The player can place various traps within the levels of the game and can also engage in direct combat with the waves of orcs that are trying to reach the magic core. The game consists of an in game currency and was released as a free to play title across both the platforms. The players can utilize the currency to make upgrade their traps and acquire other items and attributes to enhance the playability of their character of choosing.
The game includes co-operative matches against AI opponents for upto three players. Also included is a competitive mode which lets two teams of three players each combat on different areas in the map while affecting the other team’s performance. Unchained previously featured a 5v5 siege mode in the beta, which was dropped.
As far as gameplay is concerned, the game features three modes: Sabotage, Survival and Endless.
The sabotage mode was introduced in the game’s first non beta release. The players compete in teams with each team being able to play only in their instance of the same map with the same waves of orcs and other creatures. The player may use special items and spells to disrupt the game of the other team while continuously warding off the incoming orcs.
In Survival mode, the players will work together to fend against several incoming waves of orcs and try to defend the magic core. The orcs that manage to reach the core will reduce its health by 1. The game is lost if the magic core loses 25 health points. To stop the orcs, players can use various traps and in game objects. They can also utilize combat abilities to directly engage with the orcs. All heroes that can be selected have different stats and abilities. With time, the power and quantity of the orcs will increase. The waves can either spawn directly after another or after a specified period of time, thus giving players time to heal and place other traps.
The free to play aspect of the game requires players to collect in game currency called Skulls to use them for purchasing and crafting new traps and other attributes of their character.
The endless mode allows players to play for as long as they can while defending endless waves of orcs. The skulls are awarded to the player depending on how many waves they completed. 1 skull is also granted for every 5 waves that are completed.
Orcs Must Die: Unchained also announced a new expansion pack entitles Wu Xing Battles which features new enemies, weapons and maps. You can read about it here.
