Battle Waves: Mobile launches after four years of solo development
From pre-reg buzz to a full release
- Battle Waves: Mobile is now available on iOS and Android
- Lane-based real-time battles feature factions, deckbuilding, and fast matches
- Cross-platform PvP and Season One content are live at launch
Building a card battler from scratch is hard enough with a full studio behind you. Gabriel's Games is one person, and it's taken four years. Battle Waves: Mobile is out now, which feels like it's earned being said plainly.
Iwan covered it during pre-registration, when it was sitting at 20,000 sign-ups. Now it’s got 160,000 pre-registrations and has claimed the top spot for pre-orders on the App Store worldwide. A decent amount of expectation to carry into a launch day.
The battler itself is lane-based and real-time. You build a deck from six factions out of a launch roster of 26, all split across two sides - Helios and Nyxia - deploy units into lanes, counter what's coming at you, and try to take out the enemy base before they take out yours.
Matches are fast and readable, and the faction combinations are where most of the thinking happens. Six more factions are on the way as well, so the options will keep opening up.
There's a five-act campaign if you want to work things out before going online, with New Game Plus to push into once you've cleared it. Cross-platform ranked PvP puts iOS and Android on the same ladder, which is either reassuring or something to factor in, depending on how seriously you're taking it.
Gabriel's Games also ran a two-week open beta ahead of launch, caught six critical crashes, and fixed them before Battle Waves: Mobile went live. For a solo release with this much pre-launch attention, that matters.
Season 1: The Cosmic Collision is live now. The battle pass is in, the lore is there if you want it (two worlds collided, reality flooded with raw unstable power, factions formed from the fallout. You know how it goes).
Battles Waves is free to play on iOS and Android, with optional in-app purchases.
Check out our picks for the best card games on iOS if you're looking for more to play alongside it.
