Mech Arena: Robot Showdown is a multiplayer third-person shooter developed by Plarium, the company behind popular mobile titles such as Lost Island: Blast Adventure and RAID: Shadow Legends. In Mech Arena: Robot Showdown, you and up to four teammates duke it out in short matches against the enemy team by either capturing control points or getting more kills before the round ends. The game sports a variety of Mech models and weapons you can attach to them, allowing you to design a Mech to your preferred playstyle or your team’s required roles.
Mech Arena: Robot Showdown’s arsenal sports a variety of weapons and Mechs for players to use, a necessity as players can only have so many Mechs on standby for matches. You can upgrade your equipment to keep up with other players. Take note, however, that the grinding for necessary resources can take some time.
Luckily, the game has a host of objectives you can do to expedite the process, rewarding you with resource caches from time to time. You can also do battle in tournaments against other players, in the hopes of even more lucrative rewards.
There are machines to modify and friends to make, so while Mech Arena: Robot Showdown has come out fairly recently, there is still enough content to browse through and experiment with. Of course, you want to get the most out of your experience, which is why we have tried this game out for ourselves and come up with a bunch of tips, tricks and strategies. So be sure to stay with us to learn what robots lie in Mech Arena: Robot Showdown!
1. Cockpit Controls And Customization
All Mechs in Mech Arena: Robot Showdown use the same twin-stick control scheme, regardless of what mode of locomotion they use. The left side of your screen is reserved for moving the mech, while the right side is used for aiming, firing your weapons, and using your Mech’s ability. When moving the Mech, you might notice a gauge just above the left joystick that fills up the longer you move forward.
Once it maxes out, your Mech’s top speed will increase temporarily. This speed bonus ends after a set duration or if the Mech stops moving forward, and it has to cooldown before the player can use it again. This makes it use a tactical matter as it can help your Mech reach their destination sooner.
As mentioned previously, the right side of the screen is used for aiming. Mechs can equip up to two ranged weapons, such as sniper rifles, machine guns, and lasers. These are mounted on the sides of their chosen Mech. Players can opt to fire them in tandem by pressing the big right button, or shoot an individual weapon by pressing the respective fire buttons near the button in question.
Most of the weapons you can acquire hold limited ammunition, and must be reloaded either by emptying the weapons outright, or by manually tapping the ammo counters at the bottom. You can change how reloading works via the Controls menu available in your user profile, allowing you to reload your weapons by swiping the individual fire buttons. A handful of weapons do not reload in the traditional sense. Instead, these run off batteries that automatically regenerate ammo when not in use.
All Mechs have an ability unique to each Mech model, and you can activate this ability by tapping the button directly above the big right button. Abilities include mobility boosts, crowd control, team buffs, and offensive measures. Since they can turn the tide of a battle if used properly, all abilities have cooldowns to prevent spamming.
Related: Mech Arena: Robot Showdown Builds Guide: Recommended Mech Builds to Dominate Your Opponents
The top of your screen contains the number of players currently on the field, the score of both teams, and the time left in the match. Under normal circumstances, the positions of the opposing team members are obscured on the map.
However, once someone on your team has visual contact with an enemy, their position is broadcast to all team members until the enemy moves out of sight. Be aware that if there are only 30 seconds left in a match, then positions of everyone are exposed regardless of whether they are in the line of sight of someone else or not.
2. Working On Your War Machines
There are 14 Mechs you can acquire outside of time-limited events. All accounts start with the Paragon, a medium-sized Mech whose ability increases movement speed for a short time, and two autocannons. As you progress, you can unlock more Mechs and weapons to build up your team. Each Mech and weapon also has a brief outline explaining their purpose on the battlefield, as well as any weaknesses you must take into account.
To unlock these components, you level up your profile by competing in matches. This gets you some experience based on your performance. Certain actions result in more experience. These include completing match objectives, getting killing streaks, or simply winning the match in question. However, even after you unlock these parts, you will still have to purchase them for your own use.
This can be done using Credits (the game’s standard currency earned through matches or completing daily/weekly challenges), or A-coins (the game’s premium currency, which can rarely be obtained for free). Completing the tutorial should unlock your second Mech, the Lancer. The Lancer is a light, speedy Mech equipped with jump jets that allow it to get to places other Mechs cannot reach. However, it is quite fragile and will crumple against heavy firepower.
All Mechs have an Energy cap that limits how powerful your equipped weapons can get. In some cases, your chosen Mech might only have enough Energy for just one weapon, limiting your damage output. Each weapon you can find comes in tiers that determine not only their damage, but also the amount of Energy they consume.
Thus, equipping a pair of the same weapon doubles the amount of Energy required. You can even equip two different weapons, which can be useful if one weapon is used to complement the other, or just go with one weapon, if your gun of choice consumes all available Energy on your Mech. All Mechs receive increased damage when attacked from behind, encouraging ambushes.
Among some of the weapons you can find are:
RPG: Your basic rocket launchers that fire warheads which deal damage in an area of effect that, thankfully, does not harm you or your allies. Since these rockets have travel time, they can be a bit finicky to use against distant targets. Note that the blast radius also takes into account rear attacks, so do not be surprised if some rockets deal more damage than usual.
Thermal Laser: A battery-powered beam, Thermal Lasers do not deal a lot of damage. However, these inflict their targets with an “Overheat” debuff that increases all damage they receive until the debuff wears off. This makes it great for tagging priority targets, helping your team finish off a particularly resilient foe, or for simply picking off heavily-damaged survivors.
Longarm: The first sniper rifle you can find, the Longarm deals more damage the further away you are from your target, potentially destroying weak mechs in a single shot. Their fire rate is slow and their magazine size is quite small, making it ill-suited as a close-quarters weapon. On top of this, most weapons have some level of “aim correction” that helps refine targeting against your selected enemy.
Unfortunately, the Longarm lacks this feature, making it much harder to use this weapon up close, on top of making slight deviations to your aim more punishing. It also uses up a lot of Energy, so only higher-tier and/or sufficiently upgraded Mechs can wield two of these; lighter Mechs will not be able to even equip these guns right out of the gate.
Shotgun: The functional opposite of the Longarm, the Shotgun can only function at medium to short ranges, and deals more damage the closer you are. The Shotgun is great for Mechs designed to get up close, either by closing the gap with speed or powering through enemy fire. These traits also make them very good weapons for attacking enemies from behind.
Javelin Rack: A missile pod that launches a salvo of four homing missiles after locking on, the Javelin Rack is slightly angled so its payload flies upward before seeking its target. This makes it quite powerful.
However, note that the missiles can be foiled by terrain or obstacles, and the salvo empties out the Rack, forcing you to reload after firing. Because of how the Rack is installed, it is completely useless in closed areas as the missiles will crash into the ceiling instead; mind your surroundings before opening fire.
Your hangar can only support so many Mechs, starting with only one slot which can be expanded up to five. This is initially done by spending regular Credits, but the last two slots will require A-coins. This is not just a matter of expanding your arsenal, as the number of Mechs you have on standby will determine how many times you can return to a match after your chosen Mech is destroyed.
Regardless, the limited slots will mean that Mechs will constantly be replaced along with their weapons as the developers adjust game balance and as you collect more gear. In the end, the combination of Mech and weaponry results in loadouts gaining a Power Rating. You can use this to gauge how well your loadout performs against the loadouts of other players, modifying how you are equipped as you go.
You can upgrade any equipment you have purchased by collecting blueprints. These are rewarded from lootboxes you can collect after participating or winning enough matches. Once enough blueprints have been collected, you use them and a sum of Credits to upgrade the selected Mech or weapon.
This increases their stats, specifically the damage dealt by weapons and the overall health of Mechs. After enough upgrades, the next one may provide a special bonus relevant to the equipment in question; weapons may get increased projectile speed or magazine size, while Mechs may get increases to their Energy cap to equip more powerful weapons.
Lootboxes may also reward new colors or skins for your collected mechs, allowing for some level of customization outside of equipped weapons, as well as a small sum of Credits and/or A-coins, depending on the tier of the lootbox. Upgrading weapons also affects the Power Rating of Mechs who have those weapons installed.
3. Robot Rumbles
Mech Arena: Robot Showdown has two primary modes of PvP, with one unlocked at the start and the other unlocked through leveling up your profile. Matches generally last five minutes so, barring ties, they tend to be over quite quickly. Participating in matches awards you Combat Points, while winning matches earns you Victory Points. Collecting enough of either will award you the aforementioned lootboxes, with the minimum amount for Gold lootboxes being lower.
To balance this, there is an upper limit of how many Points you can accrue over a period of time, and the only options to restore Points are to either spend A-coins or let them regenerate on their own. Regenerating takes a few hours if both limits are fully depleted. While waiting, you can either join a quick match with random players, or set up a team composed of friends you have met in previous games.
In all game modes, the number of Mechs you have assembled in your hangar determines how many “lives” you have for this match. For instance, having two Mechs means that you can only help your team twice before you can merely spectate.
Players are sorted into Divisions which are based on their performance in matches and the overall power of their assembled Mechs. Thus, winning or losing enough matches can determine whether or not you end up facing more powerful foes.
Control Point Clash
The first PvP mode is Control Point Clash. In this mode, two teams battle it out to control as much territory as possible. There are three to five control points that both teams will fight over, and a player must stay on a point to neutralize it. If a control point has been captured by the enemy team, your objective is to take it back. This will generate points as long as it remains under your team’s control. Therefore, more control points under your control means that you gain score points quicker.
In this mode, the match ends when:
- Your team collects 100 points before the opposing team;
- Your team has more points than the opposing team when time runs out; or
- The enemy team loses all their mechs before your team does.
Both teams have dedicated respawn points on the map, and can also choose to respawn on control points under their command.
Deathmatch
The second PvP mode is Deathmatch where the rules are simple: help your team earn more kills than the enemy before time runs out. In the event that both teams are tied, an additional 30 seconds are added for one team to grab the win. Should both teams fail despite the extension, the set ends in a draw. The match runs on the best of three sets.
As before, your Mech count will determine how many times you can respawn in the set. Both teams will have designated respawn areas that cannot be captured, seeing as the point of this game mode is racking up more kills before the enemy does.
Deathmatch comes in 5v5 or 2v2 flavors, and as one might expect, the latter variant punishes a death more severely than the former, because your lone teammate has to deal with the enemies by themself. Either way, both versions are identical in terms of gameplay.
Every week or so, Mech Arena: Robot Showdown hosts a Deathmatch tournament where you can face off against other players in exchange for more lucrative rewards. To participate in a tournament, you need tickets. Tickets are only earned from lootboxes. You can only carry up to 12 regular tickets, so regular participation will be broken up with running normal matches.
Alternatively, you can buy golden tickets with A-coins, and those tickets have no upper limit. The tournament lasts for a week, and your overall rank in your tournament bracket goes up and down based on your match performance. Once the tournament is over, you gain rewards based on what your final rank was.
4. Perfecting Performance
With all of Mech Arena: Robot Showdown’s features laid out, we can start discussing how to make your assembled automatons come out on top.
Keep your weapons topped up: If you are not in the midst of a firefight, and your guns are low on ammo, reload them or let the batteries recharge. You do not want to get surrounded with your proverbial pants down. Similarly, if your weapons are running low during a battle, keep your distance and find cover as your guns rearm themselves.
Mind your Daily and Weekly Objectives: Mech Arena: Robot Showdown has Daily and Weekly Objectives that refresh at regular intervals. Objectives consist of challenges that can be completed by simply playing the game. These Objectives generally reward credits, though some difficult ones can award A-coins. Completing enough objectives will reward you with a lootbox, encouraging completion of these objectives before they refresh.
Keep an eye on the map: Remember, whatever enemies your teammates can see are indicated on the minimap, so make sure to take a look at it every now and then to avoid surprises. In the event that you get blown up, choose your respawn point wisely so that you can do the most for your team while avoiding your own destruction.
Know what Mechs to start with: Even if it ends up destroyed, the right Mech at the start of a match can easily give your team an early lead. For example, in Control Point Clash it is best to go with a fast Mech so that you can start capturing points close to the spawn area of your team.
Should you survive past that, you can use that Mech either to contest Points under enemy control or harass hostile Mechs. This also means getting destroyed might be a good thing as it will let you swap to a more suitable Mech. In Deathmatch games, you may consider starting a round with one of your more combat-suitable Mech loadouts, so as to avoid giving the enemy an easy point.
Recommended Mech / Weapon Combos: Even as the game develops, there are some mechs and weapons that can carry you to future matches while you hone your skill:
Lancer / Thermal Lance: This combination is very good for a support-oriented player: use the Lancer’s superior mobility to flank the enemy and open fire, debuffing your target and making it easier for your teammates to destroy enemy Mechs. Activate the Jump Jets either to move into position or retreat to safety. We recommend wielding two Thermal Lances to overheat your target as soon as possible, even if their overall damage is low.
Juggernaut / RPG: The Juggernaut is a heavy Mech with high health but low movement speed. The Juggernaut’s ability generates a shield that absorbs incoming damage instead of the Mech’s health, lasting for a set duration or until it is depleted.
Thus, the Juggernaut’s high durability allows it to get into the middle of a fray, activate its shields, and start shooting up the brawl. Be careful though, as RPGs have relatively small magazine sizes, and there are only so many enemies the Juggernaut can face before getting overwhelmed.
Killshot / Shotgun: Essentially a weaponized unicycle, the Killshot is a light Mech whose ability sends it charging forward, dealing damage to any Mech it crashes into. Naturally, combining it with the Shotgun allows you to sneak up on an isolated enemy, fire your guns, and use your charge as an escape tool.
Alternatively, you can use the charge as an opening move before letting your guns loose. That said, the Killshot is still a light Mech so it will fold under heavy fire, and allies can interrupt your charge along with map terrain. Attacking a group of enemies is not recommended unless you know your teammates are distracting them but even then, it is very risky.
And that concludes our beginner’s guide for Mech Arena: Robot Showdown! With all that we have shared, we hope that this game has piqued your interest and our advice helps you come out on top. If you have any tips and loadouts you would like to share, please let us know in the comment section! Have fun, and game on!