Considering Southeast Asia’s love of MOBA’s, it’s about time.
Mastra is a bold new project from Malaysia’s Todak Studios that’s looking to bring Southeast Asian gamers together. As a MOBA releasing into a highly competitive market, they’re distinguishing themselves by drawing on the rich cultural history of SEA to make a game that’s distinctly Southeast Asian.
For esports fans, hearing the name Todak Studios might be a little surprising. Most would know Todak as the Malaysian esports team competing in MLBB and Valorant.
It turns out they’re a much bigger organization with separate branches that cover media, fashion, events, and of course, game development.
This also isn’t their first attempt at making games as they’ve released smaller, more simple titles such as ToGather Island and Police Sentri. Mastra is obviously on a much grander scale than Todak Studios’ previous projects but it is one that they’re determined to do.
“Everyone in our team is very excited to work on this project,” said Todak Studios CEO Ahmad “Neo Todak” Fadli. He and his team were present in PGDX to promote their game and his enthusiasm was rather infectious. “You could say that this is our dream game.”
The World of Mastra
Launching a new MOBA in this current market is a difficult thing to do as it’ll be competing against behemoths such as MLBB, League of Legends, and Dota 2. Fadli is aware of this and thus he and his team have made changes to the MOBA formula while still keeping it familiar.
The traditional three-lane map has been narrowed down to two and their biggest change is getting rid of items. Instead, players can periodically purchase elemental and chakra upgrades to modify the capabilities of their characters. In this way, Fadli believes that the system will encourage players to be creative with their builds without pigeonholing them to a standard optimal build.
The real draw of Mastra however is its story, lore, and world-building. Todak Studios’ fictional world for Mastra is heavily inspired by seventh-century Sundaland, which was a giant landmass that connected most of SEA together. Here Fadli emphasized that they didn’t want Mastra to be a game that just represented Malaysia.
They want it to be a game that can represent the diverse cultures and mythologies of SEA.
“In Europe you have knights and in Japan you have samurai. These are characters easily recognized all over the world. We want to bring forth something like that from Southeast Asia, not just Malaysia,” said Fadli.
Looking to the Future
The story and world are such an integral part of Mastra that Todak Studios is planning regular story-based updates and events to the game down the line. “A multiplayer game can’t just be competitive,” said Fadli. “It needs different kinds of content for all people to engage with.”
And of course, with the game being a MOBA, a competitive esports scene is not out of the question. And while Fadli does hope that they can one day have a championship event similar to The International, Worlds, or the M Series, their focus right now is delivering a game that SEA gamers and beyond can enjoy.
Mastra is launching its closed beta test soon on August 23-29. Registration to the closed beta can be found on their official Facebook page.
Banner photo from Todak Studios/mehaniq41 – Adobe Stock.