Sony's State of Play livestream today showed off a lot of big titles, including Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time and Giant Squid's open-world PlayStation 5 game The Pathless. One of the smaller offerings on display was Auto Chess, a competitive PC and mobile strategy game from Chinese publisher Dragonest that will be launching on PS4 October 4, 2020.
In Auto Chess, players amass an army based on a variety of fantasy creatures like gargoyles, dwarves, and knights and place them on the board in different orientations so they can automatically duke it out with seven opponents at once. The upcoming PS4 game has star levels for each piece that can be upgraded, according to Dragonest CEO Loring Lee in a PlayStation Blog post.
Auto Chess was originally a DOTA 2 mod according to Gematsu, which reported on the publisher's intent to release it on PS4 and Switch in September 2019. Auto Chess is currently on its sixth "Chess Pass" that will last until the end of August, according to its website. Lee said there will also be new game versions, PlayStation-exclusive items, and a "mysterious surprise" coming when it releases on console.
There is currently no indication when or if Auto Chess will release on Switch; Nintendo does not have the title listed on its website as of this writing. Auto Chess was Google's "Most Innovative Game" in 2019, so it may be worth a play for PS4 users who have missed out on the strategy game until now.
Auto Chess is available on mobile devices and PC. It will release for PS4 on October 4, 2020.
Source: PlayStation Blog, Gematsu, Dragonest, Nintendo