Super Monday Night Combat shows off Da Vinci's killing machine at PAX East

Super Monday Night Combat made its public debut at PAX East this past weekend, giving players not fortunate enough to nab an early beta invite the chance to assault one another's Moneyballs.

Super Monday Night Combat made its public debut at PAX East this past weekend, giving players not fortunate enough to nab an early beta invite the chance to assault one another's Moneyballs.

What's striking is how the improvements and refinements over the original Monday Night Combat are evident within just a few minutes of playing. Each class' role feels more specialized, and thanks to an extended health bar, respawns are probably going to be a bit further apart — giving you a little bit more leniency for figuring out how to play. As a result, the learning curve has a pretty forgiving gradient: It took me about half a match to start taking down some of the game's more seasoned players.

The microtransactions that will support the game's free-to-play business model are also chock-full of whip-smart ideas. For instance, Uber Entertainment is wisely side-stepping "pay to win" power-ups, instead focusing on the cosmetic additions that peppered the game's post-launch PC updates. Players can purchase outlandish characters and a metric ton of skins; one of which is a slightly more violent clone of Leonardo da Vinci. (He's not as frail as you might think.)

Check out the video below for a quick run-through of Super Monday Night Combat's new content from executive producer Chandana Ekanayake.