"The goal [of Arena of Fate ] is for every player to feel like an eSports star," said Vesselin Handjiev, game director at Crytek. "That shouldn't be reserved only for the top 5% of players."

Crytek is doing this by making Arena of Fate feel more like a traditional sport than other MOBAs -- primarily with new approaches to time limits, art design, and even terminology. The biggest difference, the 20-minute time limit, encourages faster paced play than in most other MOBAs where the unending clock allows for more defensive play. For example, if you're down on kills, there's no reason not to start a huge fight and hope to pull ahead before the clock hits zero."Teams start taking risks [at the end] and they know every second matters," Handjiev said. "It's very fast paced. Sometimes a team succeeds at the last second, and its rewarding and exciting. It ends with a lot of cheering."Even the environment changes based on how well you play. In the beginning, there's one map that sort of resembles a backyard. As your rank increases, Handjiev said new fields will unlock that feel larger and more prestigious. Chants and cheers from the crowd will also get louder. It's all meant to reproduce the feeling of rising through the ranks from amateur to pro.As an avid Dota player, I'm familiar with all of its wonderfully weird items, like the Armlet of Mordiggian. When activated, it boosts your health, damage, and attack speed, among other things, but it took me a lot of time and, frankly, raw repetition to commit that to memory. There are dozens of others, too.This is something Crytek wants to avoid altogether with Arena of Fate, potentially lowering the bar of entry, Handjiev said."We wanted to make it a modern game," Handjiev said. "There's no fantasy wording or convoluted systems. For example, in soccer, the player on the right is called the 'right wing.' It's not the 'Epic Guardian Corner Guy.' It's amazing how well that simplicity works. Also, when you pick a trait, you click and see a list of a small number of things -- more health, more damage, and so on. You don't need to learn that the 'Angelic Orb of Whiteness' gives you health."For more on MOBAs, head on over to IGN Arena and subscribe.