RAID: Shadow Legends

Teleria is losing its war against the dark lord Siroth, and your answer is to build an army, one summoned Champion at a time. RAID: Shadow Legends is Plarium's turn-based collection RPG: a dark fantasy world, a huge roster to pull from shards, and a long campaign of battles standing between you and the end of the war.

The numbers are the hook. There are more than 800 Champions across 16 factions — orcs, knights, elves, the undead, and stranger things — each with their own skills and role. Combat is turn-based and team-based, so the craft is in the composition: speed tuning, buffs and debuffs, and artifacts that turn a good Champion into the one carrying your whole dungeon run.

Content is stacked in layers. A PvE campaign crosses 12 locations, dungeons hide bosses like the Magma Dragon, the Fire Knight, and the Ice Golem, and each one asks for a different team answer. Clans band players together against the Demon Lord, the PvP Arena tests your squad against other people's, and your Bastion fortress grows in the background as you manage shards and ready Champions for the next run.

It looks the part, too — fully 3D Champions with detailed armor, a long way from flat menu fighters. One honest warning: the game sells in-game purchases that include random items, and progress at the top end leans into that. Played patiently, though, it is one of the deepest and best-supported collectors on mobile, with years of updates behind it.