tower defense games that do something different

Tower defense games were everywhere in the early days of mobile gaming. I can understand why they fell out of favor. Once you've seen a few of them, there's not much else to see. I don't remember anyone doing something dramatically different with the genre, and I stopped paying attention to it.

I think I should have kept up with it, because I just downloaded arknights and it's doing something extremely fresh. Instead of placing generic units on the field, you build a roster of 12 unique heroes before each map. There's eight different classes, and each character has a skill or talent that differentiates them from others in their class. Team composition is crucial to success on the maps, but there's a fair amount of flexibility in how you approach them. You can upgrade your characters' skills and levels between missions with materials that drop from the maps. There's a base-building part that's more or less ripped from X-COM that adds another strategic layer to the whole thing.

You can get new heroes through completing the story, over time by using a special recruitment mechanic, or with gacha rolls. Even here, they've done something interesting by making even low-rarity heroes viable into the late game. Even the starter units have skills that make them useful for much longer than you would expect.

It's made me fall in love with tower defense again, and it made me wonder what other games have done something different with the formula. What have I missed in the years that I wasn't interested in it? Can you recommend anything to me?

Don't know how long ago you dabbled in tower defense, but I was a huge fan of Dungeon Defenders when it came out. The sequels are pretty awful since they went f2p or turned one into a MOBA, but the first is a good tower defense game where you're also getting diablo style loot for your character.

Just gonna listen in here too. Also, you might say Loop Hero is a tower defence game that does something different.

@noboners: Dungeon defenders was so good! I burned quite a few hours on it. I never touched the sequels. Defender Chronicles was also great, with different heroes you could put on the map and randomized loot.

@anderswarming: Loop Hero is pretty special, and looking at it as a kind of tower defense is intriguing. I’m going to have to chew on that thought for a while haha.

@laughingman: Sanctum was a good first person tower defense game. You could build up blocks of defenses in a similar style as Satisfactory (same developer). Once the wave starts, you then also have FPS weapons to shoot at the invaders along with the defense towers. Haven’t tried Sanctum 2 yet.

Dungeon Defenders and Sanctum are both pretty classic examples in my mind of TD games with a little something extra. If I remember correctly the main difference of Sanctum 2, beyond just graphical and gameplay tweaks, was a more structured campaign, as opposed to playing each map piecemeal. I didn't get particularly far in it, but it seemed alright for what it was.

Terraria also has a set of tower defense mechanics, although I wouldn't describe the game itself as a TD game. Some time a few years back they added a new NPC, the tavernkeep, as a promotional deal with Dungeon Defenders. It adds a tower defense mode, with staves and armor to summon towers alongside the regular Terraria combat mechanics. If I remember correctly, once you beat at least one difficulty level in the tower defense mode, you unlock the ability to use the towers outside of it as well, meaning the whole game could theoretically be played as a TD-lite, after a certain point.

If you are at all interested in a more serious and complex (albeit classic art styled) tower defense games, Gem Craft has been my favorite of all time. Gemcraft 2 and Frostborn Wrath are both on steam, have well over a hundred levels, challenge variations, difficulty modifiers, exp, skill, equipment, active abilities, and so on. Good for at least a hundred hours each in my experience.

@laughingman: I think I stopped playing TD games when they all went heavy on the F2P mechanics and lost a lot of charm. I'm intrigued by Arknight, I'll download it and give it a try thanks for the recommend.

Gem Craft is a really awesome game. I fully support

As already mentioned, Sanctum 1 & 2 are both great TD-FPS hyrbids, one of my other favorite generally overlooked ones is Dungeon of the Endless. It's a really interesting mix of TD with rogue-like dungeon crawling, it's a bit hard to describe it totally in text, but I found it really unique and a really good challenge.

EDIT: Oh and Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten isn't bad either, fairly standard TD mixed with some RPG mechanics and story, not the most unique game ever but still a solid good time.

World of Van Helsing: Deathtrap is another tower defense / arpg mashup that I enjoyed quite a bit.

@panfoot: How could I forget Dungeon of the Endless? That's a weird but extremely cool game that I haven't played enough of. The Endless devs really know what they're doing.

@kalimando: Gem Craft looks great, and I'll definitely check it out when I have more time.

@rahulricky: Same here. Arknights does a lot of clever things that make the FTP and gatcha aspects not particularly burdensome. The main thing the premium currency is used for is getting extra outfits for your characters. I'm still playing it obsessively, and the only thing I've done is buy the monthly pass for $4.99. I'll probably spend just a little more to support the devs, and not because I need to. I hope you enjoy it.

ETA: Thanks for all the recommendations, everyone. I'm happy to see more of these cool mashups than I thought were out there. Now to play some more arknights...

Gonna add Orcs Must Die 1 and 2 to the list of FPS - TD hybrids. I really enjoyed it what I played of Orcs Must Die 2 and go back to it every now and then.

It doesn't do anything new but I love the crap out of that Adventure TimeBloons collab. It's the right amount of difficult, with systems in pkace that allow you to really cheese it if you want.

Plants vs. Zombies is still probably my favorite, especially in co op. Toy Soldiers: Cold War was also a lot of fun.

Something about Arknights just clicked with me in a way few others have, probably because the "towers" are actually animal-people with stories and personalities behind them.

Gotta say, I really enjoyed Orcs Must Die 1 and 2. They're fun third person shooters (sort of) with TD elements, lots of different abilities for your characters, and pretty swift campaigns if you're looking to beat a game and don't have as much free time as you'd like.

@dochaus: It's something that really stood out to me, too. Build up their trust in your abilities by using them successfully in battle, and you'll learn more about them and why they came to work for your outfit. There's a lot to learn about each character beyond their stats and abilities. It's completely consumed my gaming time for the last couple of weeks.