If you’re looking for a unique third-person MOBA, then Predecessor may be right up your alley.

You may remember that from 2016 to 2018, Epic was working on a third-person MOBA titled Paragon. Epic eventually shut Paragon down and focused on Fortnite, but released all of the assets made for Paragon so other studios could use them. Omeda Studios did just that, taking the Paragon assets and creating Predecessor.

Like most MOBAs, Predecessor's map is intertwined with the game's roles and characters. There are also various items to buy, which have a big impact on how the action plays out. We've put together a guide to how all of Predecessor's core systems work, along with everything else you need to know before you hop into your first game.

 

The map

To start with, Predecessor's map is separated into four main areas: Offlane, Jungle, Mid Lane, and Duo Lane. There’s one player in every area, with the exception of Duo Lane, which is meant for two players (hence the name).

The Offlane, Mid Lane, and Duo Lane have two Towers and an Inhibitor on each team’s side. Past the Inhibitors at either end of each Lane is the Core—the Dawn Core on one team’s side and the Dusk Core on the other. Once an Inhibitor is down, you can take down the enemy’s Core and win the game.

The Jungle space in between each lane has a lot of benefits as well. Fangtooth and Orb Prime are two bosses found in the Jungle. Whichever team defeats them receives buffs that can help them win the game.

 

Roles and lanes

Understanding the map is a critical part of succeeding in Predecessor, but understanding your role in the game and who you play is just as important. There are five roles in the game, and most of them are directly named after their lane: Offlaner, Jungler, Mid Laner, Carry, and Support.

The Offlaner puts pressure on the enemy team, often initiating fights and trying to take out the enemy’s Carry and other high-damage dealing players. These Heroes are generally a bit easier to play since they have either great defense or abilities that help them regenerate health, making it a perfect beginner role.

The Jungler’s job is to sway the game in their team’s favor. They gain strength by defeating jungle monsters, and normally pop in and out of lanes to help their teammates get ahead of the enemy. To be a good Jungler, you need to have good map awareness and be able to predict and work with your teammates to find the best times to gank—or take down—the enemy laner.

Mid Laners are damage-dealing characters who excel at using their abilities to hurt as many people as possible. However, they have pretty low health, and being in the middle of the map makes them vulnerable. Playing Mid Lane can be hard if you’re not confident about winning constant one-on-one fights (and even the occasional one-on-two, when a Jungler comes into play). Offlaners often come down to help Mid Laners as well, making the lane hard to juggle.

The Carry and Support work together in the Duo Lane. The Support protects and/or enables the Carry, letting the Carry be a true glass cannon. While being a glass cannon is difficult, Support is generally considered another beginner role since their main job is to use their abilities to keep their Carry alive. Generally, enemies are going to focus on rushing the Carry, giving the Support plenty of time to react and play without worrying about dying.

Picking a role in Predecessor can be a bit of a coin toss. Once players accept the match invitation, they’ll pick what role they want to play. Teammates can see what everyone’s choosing, so many players will work to create a balanced team. However, if two players pick the same role, the game will assign each of them a role: one will get the contested role and one will get the role that was left open.

Tip: If you get stuck playing a role that you don’t know, make sure to look at all the Heroes you can pick. There are rotating Heroes that can be played for free, and you may get a chance to try someone you wouldn’t normally be able to because of your role.

 

Heroes

A player’s Hero choice ultimately depends on the role they’re playing. Many Heroes can fill multiple roles, but there’s generally a role where they will be most successful. This depends on the meta, meaning the best Heroes and strategies at a specific time. The meta changes as the game updates and adds new Heroes and balance tweaks.

Predecessor contains over 35 Heroes to choose from, between every role. Here’s a quick breakdown of the best beginner Heroes for each lane:

• Offlane: Greystone and Grux. (If experienced with MOBAs, try Shinbi.)
• Jungle: Khaimera and Feng Mao. (If experienced with MOBAs, try Rampage.)
• Midlane: Gideon and Morigesh. (If experienced with MOBAs, try The Fey.)
• Carry: Sparrow and Murdock. (If experienced with MOBAs, try TwinBlast.)
• Support: Phase and Dekker. (If experienced with MOBAs, try Lt. Belica.)

Tip: Predecessor has a difficulty tier for its Heroes, but it’s a bit arbitrary. Just because a Hero is rated Difficult doesn’t mean that you can’t play them—in fact, a Difficult-ranked Hero may be the perfect Hero for your playstyle and you may find them easy to pick up. You can choose a Hero to try out by picking one that looks cool to you, whether you're drawn to their design or their abilities.

 

Items

In Predecessor, there are two main ways of doing more damage: leveling up and buying items. Items give you the biggest boosts to power, and they’re incredibly important. In fact, they’re so important that the game will start off by automatically buying them for you.

For beginners, there’s not too much to worry about when it comes to items because of the Auto Buy system. Predecessor will optimize your build based on what it thinks you should buy, and the main thing you should do is check out the shop every time you go back to base. Sometimes the Auto Buy can be a little funky, and can miss smaller items that build into bigger items, so be sure to stop by and keep an eye on what it's doing. You can tell what item Auto Buy is trying to purchase by the item in the middle of the screen.

The one time everyone should pay attention to their items is at the beginning of the game, when everyone’s asked to pick a Crest. There are seven options, and they correlate with your role and damage type. Generally, these are automatically set to the right Crest for each character and role. However, because Heroes can be good in several roles, you should give it a quick look and adjust your Crest if necessary. When you’re picking a Crest, there are descriptions underneath to help you choose the one you need.

Aside from Crests,  items come in different types, and you'll need to know the difference between Consumables and Active Items. Both of these give you something when you use them—such as Health Potions or Wards—but Consumables provide a limited number of uses, while Active Items can be used multiple times with a cooldown in between.

You can look at your items at any time to see if they have any active abilities, which you trigger by pressing the corresponding number to the item in your inventory. Your items can be moved around, making it easier to use better items you acquire as the game goes on.
 

Communicating and winning as a team

Knowing how Predecessor works is only the first step to winning a game. Like any other MOBA, you’ll need to work together with your team to figure out what to do. Luckily, there are multiple ways to do this.

The best option for coordinating effectively is text chat—but it's not active by default. When you first open Predecessor, you’ll need to turn on text chat in the Settings menu.

If you don't want to deal with text chat, there’s still a pretty in-depth Pinging system that you can open by hitting 'C' on your keyboard. The Ping menu can be confusing at first, so take some time getting familiar with where the commands are if you’re not comfortable with text chat.

While it may seem silly, communication can make or break games from the very start. Predecessor is a team-based game, and one overpowered Hero isn’t going to win on their own. You’ll need a balanced team that can fight together and play the game as a group—and in most cases, that’s going to require communication.

That’s everything you need to know before hopping into a game of Predecessor. If you’re worried about playing against other players from the start, you can try a few AI battles before putting your skills to the test!

You can pick up Predecessor now on the Epic Games Store.