Relic Arena has a release date.

Credit: Double Edge Games

Relic Arena, the auto battler game created by Dota 2 casters Shannon "SUNSfan" Scotten and Andrew "Jenkins" Jenkins, finally has a release date after years of development.

As announced in a new trailer, Relic Arena will launch on May 7. The game will be available on Steam, with the store page now live and available to wishlist.

Relic Arena is an auto battler, similar to Auto Chess and Teamfight Tactics, with a historical theme. It features iconic leaders from history such as Abe Lincoln, Isaac Newton and Celopatra to play as, and historic artifacts to build your squad with. You’ll build up a unique team of characters and abilities, and then watch on as they battle against the teams from other players in the hope you can come out on top.

The game will launch as a free to play title, with the only monetization coming from cosmetics and other optional extras, much like the Dota 2 model. This means there really is no reason not to try Relic Arena when it launches, as you can jump in and experience the entire game for free to see if it is for you, and if it isn’t then you haven’t lost anything.

Relic Arena has been developed by a pair of Dota 2 casters in the form of SUNSfan and Jenkins, along with a team of developers. The pair previously created the Ability Arena Dota 2 custom game, which remains the best auto battler I have ever played. However, after Valve changed the rules on monetization in Dota 2 custom games, the pair moved on and started to work on Relic Arena.

Hopefully Relic Arena can recapture some of the magic of the Ability Arena custom game, which really was something special. Of course, having the built in knowledge of Dota and how its spells work gave Ability Arena an advantage, but with a lot of the design from the custom game being moved over to Relic Arena, I’m hopeful it can be just as satisfying to play.

Following a successful Kickstarter campaign and a long beta to refine the game, the development process for Relic Arena is now about to hit the biggest milestone yet with the full launch. With the game finally set to become available to everyone for free, it will be interesting to see how many people jump onto the game and if it can become a long term success.