Hero Defense: Merge TD is a new take on the genre with deep meta-progression

• Hero Defense: Merge TD offers a blend of many genres
• Merge heroes and hold off waves of enemies in a blend of tower defence and deck-building
• It offers a solo focus for a traditionally more multiplayer-oriented genre

Tower defence is one of those genres that's a staple of gaming on mobile and every other platform. So it's always interesting to see a new entry and find out what they bring to the table. Hero Defense: Merge TD claims to offer a blend of many elements and a gripping core gameplay loop, so let's take a look!

The core of Hero Defense: Merge TD is a blend of tower defence, deck-building and what they call, deep meta progression. In practice, what we have is something similar to Rush Royale, where your objective is to put down different heroes and merge them into stronger units.

Beyond that, there's nothing too standout, but Hero Defense undeniably comes jam-packed with plenty of features. That deep meta progression mainly boils down to a single-player version of the overarching progression you'd find in the aforementioned Rush Royale, albeit with seemingly more of a solo focus.

Rush to the defence

The comparisons to Rush Royale aren't meant to denigrate Hero Defense at all. But it's just a fact that this seems to have a lot of crossover with My.Games' existing blend of tower defence and merge puzzler. Although with Hero Defense, there may be one element which makes it stand out.

For better or for worse, if Hero Defense: Merge TD is indeed focused more on single-player fun, with plenty of chapters to explore and options for building your deck, I can see it presenting a very compelling alternative to the more multiplayer-focused Rush Royale.

But, in the meantime, you don't need to fret about making a choice. Because there's a host of strategy options out there that don't edge into the territory of tower defence. Check out our list of the top 25 best strategy games on iOS and Android to find out for yourself!