Amazon’s hero-based sports brawler, Breakaway, playable for free this weekend

Amazon Game Studios’ mythological sport brawler Breakaway, a third-person competitive multiplayer game with elements of Rocket League, Powerstone and League of Legends, is playable this weekend in alpha form, the game’s creators announced this week. The Windows PC game will be available to download and play through Monday, Dec. 19 for free.

Breakaway is one of three projects in development at Amazon Game Studios, which is also working on New World, a massively multiplayer, open-ended sandbox game, and Crucible, a hero-based survival game set on an alien world.

Developed for PC platforms and built with Twitch streaming in mind, Breakaway is a 4v4 brawler infused with sports game rules. Each team of four heroes is trying to move a ball — known as the relic — into a goal located at the center of the opponent’s base. Each hero — eight of which have been revealed so far — has their own set of special abilities and structures they can build. Like other team-based games and MOBAs, teamwork, team composition and thoughtful use of each hero’s specialties is critical to success.

We got to go hands-on with Breakaway at Amazon Game Studios recently and were pleasantly surprised by the game’s depth, considering how easy it was to pick up and play. The game’s heroes include a mix of archetypical warriors, like the tank class Black Knight, melee swordsman Spartacus and spellcaster Morgan Le Fay, who do battle on fabled battlegrounds such as El Dorado and Atlantis.

Each hero has a pair of structures he or she can build, including turrets, walls and healing shrines. Players can build one structure per round to cut off routes or support their allies in a push into the enemy’s base. Adding to the depth are upgrades that players can purchase mid-game with gold they earn over the course of battle. There’s a complexity in Breakaway underpinning the brawling, relic-running action, but with a little coaching from the developer, much of it was easy to grasp within an hour or so.

While securing the relic and dunking it into the enemy’s home base is the primary goal, players can score through other means. A full-team kill will also win your team a round. And if the in-game clock ticks down to zero and you’ve got control of the relic on your opponent’s half of the map, you’ll win that round. Those two scoring opportunities make for some of the best, most nail-biting moments in Breakaway, as you either frantically try to hunt down the last surviving player on the enemy team before the others respawn, or desperately pass the relic to your teammates to secure field position.

Breakaway players will get a playable look at a newly announced hero, Victor, during this weekend’s open alpha. Described as “a powerful, ranged nuker who sacrifices mobility for high burst damage at long range” by Amazon Game Studios, Victor specializes in breaking up the opposing team when they group up. More details on Victor and the latest updates to the game, are available at the game’s official website.

For more on the game, can also watch 42 minutes of gameplay from Breakaway, featuring heroes Thorgrim, Rawlins and Alona, in the video above.