Level Up! Games, recently acquired by online game operator Asiasoft, is expanding into Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) by entering into a partnership with United States-based game developing company S2 Games, said Jake San Diego, General Manager of Level Up!'s publisher and operator Playweb Games Inc. in a media conference on Thursday.

"We're excited to enter MOBA, finally!" San Diego added.

S2 Games is currently developing their latest MOBA called Strife, which is currently on closed beta, open only to a select few who are trying out and assessing the game before it is opened to the public.

S2 Games' Chief Operating Officer Scott Valencia will be in the Philippines until August 3 to meet up with local LAN (local area network) centers and to assess ping rates (also called latency or delay).

"Our goal is to have the ping rates at double digits, hopefully less than 50 milliseconds on Day One [the day we launch]," Valencia added.

He also said that Strife would be launched globally on the same day.

"Everybody will be playing on the same servers. This means that if you're here in the Philippines and you want to play with people in Europe, you can do it," he added.

Valencia also said that Strife was designed to become an 'equal playing field' to both beginners and hard core gamers by avoiding toxicity (partly the result of having to compete not only with opponents but also with teammates), keeping a limited but sustainable number of heroes, and by allowing the player to dictate how hardcore the game should be.

Strife will be on open beta within the next 90 days. — DVM, GMA News