Faction Packed combines backpack-building and fantasy battles in one strategic package

• Faction Packed is an upcoming backpack builder arriving on Android this month
• Pick your hero and your faction, then build your gear from a shared marketplace
• Then jump into fast-paced three-round battles to fight for supremacy

Occasionally, in the world of gaming, we get a genre name that sounds like some kind of weird joke about the variety of our humble platform. Backpack-building certainly sounds like one on the surface, but as anybody familiar with Backpack Battles can attest, it's a surprisingly engrossing genre. And it's one being used to its fullest in Faction Packed.

This is an upcoming indie RPG from developer Kyoso Interactive that's set to launch in New Zealand this week, with a planned release worldwide release later on this month. Faction Packed sees you taking on the typical fantasy strategy battles, but with a backpack-building twist.

Each battle sees you bidding on various items from a shared marketplace with your opponent and then trying to maximise the space in your backpack with simple sliding and slotting mechanics. From there, you then jump into fast-paced three-round battles where your tactical thinking will be put to the test.

Backpacking across fantasyland

While it's still relatively early days for Faction Packed, I certainly think that it's an intriguing concept and one which already looks to be well-executed from what we've seen thus far. At the moment, it's seemingly only set to come to Android, but I wouldn't be surprised if an iOS release is also on the cards.

I'm particularly interested in the promise of different heroes you can play as, which embody different fantasy archetypes such as the headstrong barbarian or tricky rogue. And with three factions to throw your lot in with and multiplayer battles on the cards, this might be a bold new step for a relatively niche genre to be taking.

In the meantime, while it may not be a one-to-one comparison, you can always skip filling the backpack in favour of building a deck. So check out our list of the best card battlers on iOS to see what options we suggest.