Awesomenauts

I went into Awesomenauts expecting a gimmick, and what I found instead was one of the cleanest distillations of MOBA logic ever put on a 2D plane. Ronimo Games took the turret-push, the droid waves, the per-match upgrade shop, and the 3v3 team fights, then threw all of it sideways into a side-scrolling platformer. The result plays closer to a precision action game than a cursor-clicking strategy title, and that shift alone makes it worth understanding. The core loop is tight. Two teams of three fight to push droid minions through opposing turret lanes and blow up the enemy's base. Kills reward Solar, the in-match currency you spend at your base's upgrade shop between respawns. Each character comes with a small ability set and a branching upgrade tree of around twelve slots per match, so you're building on the fly based on how the fight is going. Clunk is your bruiser, Voltar your healer-drone-commander, while most others blur roles depending on how you build them. Precision jumping matters here in ways it doesn't in a top-down MOBA: vertical platform gaps create cover, turrets have angles you can abuse, and a well-timed drop through a floor is a legitimate escape tool. Controls on keyboard and mouse are responsive once you adjust to the scheme, and the game supports controllers comfortably if that's your preference. The presentation is genuinely its own thing. It goes all-in on an 80s Saturday morning cartoon aesthetic, complete with an absurdly catchy theme song that will live in your head for days. The character roster includes a jetpack monkey, a brain-in-a-jar healer, a laser-slinging space cowboy, and enough variety to make most playstyles land somewhere comfortable. Balance has always been a recurring criticism and the matchmaking system drew complaints even at launch, but the per-character depth holds up in organized play. The bigger issue right now, in 2026, is the player count. Concurrent Steam numbers hover in the double digits to low triple digits daily. You can still find matches, but queue times stretch, and the matchmaker will occasionally pair fresh players against veterans because the pool is too thin to do otherwise. Team balance suffers at low population in ways that feel unfair if you're new. For a premade group of three friends who want a focused co-op and PvP session with something to learn, this is still a solid choice. The workshop support means custom content exists, and local co-op with split-screen is present for couch sessions. Solo ranked is a harder sell today. The lobby you're fighting over has been largely vacated, and there's no serious competitive ladder to climb when the nightly peak barely cracks a hundred players. If you have the friends to fill your side of a custom lobby, or you want a genuinely clever take on MOBA mechanics that you can learn in a single evening, Awesomenauts still delivers. If you're coming in hoping for a live competitive shooter experience with clean matchmaking and an active ranked scene, the population will let you down before the game does. Fred, Scout Team