RIGS: Mechanized Combat League turns mech combat into a televised sport, and it mostly works. Guerrilla Cambridge built the game for PlayStation VR on PlayStation 4, and Sony Interactive Entertainment published it in 2016. The pitch is simple: strap on a headset, pick a Rig from your garage, and fight inside stadiums in Rio de Janeiro and Dubai.
Trailer, via IGDBcom.
Six Pilots, Five Minutes, Two Halves
Matches run five minutes and split into two halves. Six players form two three-man teams. Each Rig carries its own weapons loadout and ability, and destroying an opposing Rig scores a Takedown.
The game sets its competition 50 years in the future. Ten years after release, that distance still gives the arenas room to feel like real venues rather than abstract boxes.
Team Takedown, Power Slam, Endzone
Three match types carry the package. Team Takedown works like team deathmatch, with both squads racing to score the most takedowns inside five minutes. Power Slam asks teams to rack up points by jumping into a ring at the center of the arena, but only after reaching Overdrive by scoring takedowns and collecting power spheres. Endzone borrows from American football: take a holographic ball and run through the opposition’s goalpost while holding it.
| Match type | Goal | Gate |
|---|---|---|
| Team Takedown | Most takedowns in five minutes | None |
| Power Slam | Most points via the center ring | Enter Overdrive first |
| Endzone | Score through the enemy goalpost | Control the holographic ball |
Twenty-Four Rigs, Four Classes
The roster runs 24 Rigs across four classes: Sentinel, Hunter, Mirage, and Tempest. Nine Lives is a Mirage with the Vampire ability, which restores full health after a takedown, plus a warhead missile launcher on the left arm and a beam laser emitter on the right. Dead Center is a Tempest with Thief, which pulls power spheres and the Endzone ball from a distance.
Each RIG comes with its own specialties, allowing players to develop distinctive combat styles and team tactics based on your RIGs’ size, shape, abilities and weapons.
That variety is the real hook. The loadouts change how a team moves, not just how it shoots.
The Servers Went Dark
Sony shut the online servers down on 12 August 2022. That matters more than any single match type, because RIGS was built around six-player competition and the arena is now empty.
What the Empty Arena Leaves Behind
What remains is a sharp, well-designed sports shooter that lost the thing it was designed to do. The 24 Rigs and the Endzone rules still hold up as ideas. They just have nowhere to play.
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