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Urban Rivals

Urban Rivals Game Cover
61%Game Brain Score
gameplay, graphics
story, stability
61% User Score Based on 231 reviews

Platforms

LinuxPCTabletAndroidWeb BrowserMac OSPhoneiPadSteam DeckMobile PlatformiPhoneWindows
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Urban Rivals Game Cover

About

Urban Rivals is a single player and multiplayer role playing game with fantasy, anime, dark fantasy and science fiction themes. It was developed by Acute Games and was released on October 18, 2017. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

Urban Rivals WORLD is the biggest update the game has had in 16 years. This is a soft-reboot economy with brand new twisted game mechanics and classic gameplay for our old school fans. UR is the underground card battler, now available on mobile for fans and new players:

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Urban Rivals screenshot
Urban Rivals screenshot
Urban Rivals screenshot
Urban Rivals screenshot
Urban Rivals screenshot
Urban Rivals screenshot
Urban Rivals screenshot
Urban Rivals screenshot
Urban Rivals screenshot
Urban Rivals screenshot
Urban Rivals screenshot
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61%
Audience ScoreBased on 231 reviews
gameplay14 positive mentions
stability13 negative mentions
  • Unique strategic gameplay with bluffing and resource management, offering easy to learn but hard to master mechanics.
  • Large variety of cards and clans with unique abilities and synergies, providing depth and customization in deck building.
  • Quick matches ideal for short play sessions and a supportive community with regular updates and events.
  • Outdated and buggy user interface with poor Steam port, causing frustration and lack of features compared to the browser version.
  • Heavy pay-to-win elements with expensive cards and significant grind, making it hard for new players to compete without spending money.
  • Declining and limited player base leading to poor matchmaking, compounded by balance issues, power creep, and occasional toxic community and developer support.
  • gameplay
    47 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The gameplay of Urban Rivals is widely praised for its unique blend of strategic prediction, bluffing, and resource management, resembling poker more than traditional card games. Matches are fast-paced and engaging, offering deep mind-game mechanics despite occasional balance issues and a buggy interface. While some criticize outdated visuals and redundant mechanics, the core gameplay remains addictive, accessible, and well-suited for quick, competitive sessions.

    • “The core mechanic is brilliant: each round is a battle of prediction, bluffing, and resource management.”
    • “Actually, the game resembles poker more than most common trading card games, as reading and fooling your opponent is the primary gameplay mechanic here, rather than handling resources to make the most of your cards, though that is an important aspect, too.”
    • “Matches are quick, which makes it perfect for short play sessions — but don’t mistake that for shallow gameplay.”
    • “The situation is so compromised that the game mechanics themselves have suffered and the meta is at this point completely screwed.”
    • “Now the gameplay requires you to predict what they would do if you use a certain amount of pillz.. that is legitimately stupid.. it's better if you just put the card down and let it face each other instead of powering it up with pillz.”
    • “And besides that, there are numerous bugs; sometimes the game can't understand its own mechanics so your opponent will inflict more damage than he was supposed to, or sometimes you will gain one more life point, or, if you're lucky, you can have minus zero pillz somehow.”
  • graphics
    35 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's graphics feature unique and charming original card artwork with a strong comic and pop culture aesthetic that many players appreciate, though the quality is inconsistent with some cards appearing pixelated or outdated. The overall visuals feel dated compared to modern card games, with some criticisms centered on low-definition images, dull animations, and a cluttered, unintuitive interface. While the art style has nostalgic appeal, an updated graphical overhaul and UI improvement would significantly enhance the experience.

    • “The visual aesthetics of the game and the detailed designs of the various regions allow you to fully feel the atmosphere of the game.”
    • “This game has beautiful card artwork, interesting mechanics, and pop culture references galore, that made me love this game more than Hearthstone, a million times over.”
    • “Great artwork, every character has multiple stages each with unique art.”
    • “The graphics and UI are terrible, and the UI design is a nightmare. It is impossible to navigate through the many counterintuitive menus, perform even the simplest tasks, or understand what is possible to do.”
    • “Some visuals are dated, featuring very low definition and sketchy drawings.”
    • “Also, a few cards (usually the original ones from 2006 that never got updated) have embarrassingly bad artwork in terms of quality.”
  • story
    15 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's story is centered around the colorful characters of "Clint City," with each card representing a unique citizen and their individual background, offering a basic but present narrative. The tutorial is extensive and effectively introduces gameplay elements while providing reasonable rewards, though some UI issues suggest a mobile-first design. While missions and daily rewards exist, players note that these can feel insufficient compared to store purchases, indicating a blend of story-driven content with pay-to-win dynamics.

    • “Cards display the colorful citizens of 'Clint City', the place where the plot takes place. Yes, it has some plot—not saying it's deep, but it exists.”
    • “Each character has a unique story and abilities.”
    • “The tutorial does an excellent job of showcasing everything you need to know and rewards you with a decent amount of in-game money for completing all the tutorial missions.”
    • “Cards are displaying the colorful citizens of 'Clint City', the place where the plot (yes it has some plot, not saying it's deep but it exists) takes place.”
    • “C+ an unrealistic number of characters with a written story.”
    • “The tutorial has 38+1 missions; when getting to the later missions, one needs to drag down the window while holding the left mouse button as there are no sliders or anything, which is tedious and hints that the game is designed primarily for the mobile platform.”
  • stability
    13 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game suffers from significant stability issues, including frequent bugs, UI glitches, broken links, and loading problems. The Steam version is particularly buggy and unresponsive, hampering user experience despite enjoyable gameplay. Overall, the app feels neglected and frustrating to use.

    • “The Steam version of the Urban Rivals app is a weird, buggy mess: parts of the UI are in French even though my account is set to English, and there are several broken links and infinitely loading images in the deck builder.”
    • “The game is buggy as hell, with card images being blank the majority of the time.”
    • “The Steam app is basically the same buggy app that has been out for months; there is no effort put into improving it.”
  • monetization
    9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's monetization heavily relies on aggressive microtransactions and in-app purchases integrated throughout, leading to a grind-heavy experience typical of free-to-play card games. While one mode offers a more monetization-free roguelite style, overall the approach is viewed as greedy and exploitative, with many players perceiving it as a cash grab rather than a fair value.

    • “As for monetization, like most free-to-play card games, there’s a grind or optional purchases involved.”
    • “Especially in the new - well new for me, anyways - "kinda roguelite" mode, which seems to be completely free without any monetization.”
    • “It's not free; it's riddled with toxic mobile app microtransactions in the nasty real money cash shop that's integrated into every aspect of this shallow garbage.”
    • “Setting the greedy mobile monetization and toxic cash shop aside, this is an iPhone app, not a PC game.”
    • “Extremely lazy and greedy developers. They'll take every opportunity for a quick and cheap cash grab.”
  • music
    7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The music in Urban Rivals is praised for being varied, memorable, and enhancing the game's unique atmosphere, but some users find it becomes annoying over time. Additionally, the removal of classic tracks and occasional audio glitches, like random unmuting, have drawn criticism. Overall, the soundtrack is appreciated but could benefit from improvements and a return to some fan-favorite tunes.

    • “Urban Rivals has an excellent soundtrack, beautiful characters, and unique, addicting gameplay.”
    • “All the finishing animations, the animated backgrounds that changed each battle, the varied music that made it memorable, now all gone, and what's in its place?”
    • “There's good music, and the clans are all unique looking with vibrant art, lore and personality.”
    • “On the negative side, I can highlight that at a certain hour, the music starts to get annoying.”
    • “Especially the music, just return the classic music and add new ones if you want, don't just remove them for no reason.”
    • “The music will randomly unmute, and needs to be toggled twice to mute again.”
  • grinding
    5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Grinding in the game can be quite demanding, especially early on and when aiming for high-cost cards that require long periods of play to accumulate enough resources. This aspect may appeal to players who enjoy persistent grinding but can feel tedious and challenging, particularly for progressing in online PvP.

    • “Expect to hit a massive coin block sooner or later; most of the characters are reasonably affordable, but then there are cards costing several million, which can take quite a while to save up for. Good for those who like grinding out the game, but it's important to keep in mind.”
    • “Back when I was playing it (a long time ago), it was quite grindy to the point where it was really hard to get anything good to compete in online PvP.”
    • “The game can feel grindy early on.”
  • atmosphere
    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's detailed regional designs and strong visual aesthetics effectively immerse players, creating a deeply engaging and authentic atmosphere.

    • “The visual aesthetics of the game and the detailed designs of the various regions allow you to fully feel the atmosphere of the game.”
  • humor
    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Users find the humor in the game to be ineffective and unfunny.

  • replayability
    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game offers high replayability due to its large variety of skills and additional hidden surprises, combined with a complex gameplay structure that encourages multiple playthroughs.

  • optimization
    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's optimization is poor, resulting in an unsmooth and laggy performance.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Urban Rivals is a role playing game with fantasy, anime, dark fantasy and science fiction themes.

Urban Rivals is available on PC, Web Browser, Mac OS, Phone and others.

Urban Rivals was released on October 18, 2017.

Urban Rivals was developed by Acute Games.

Urban Rivals has received mostly positive reviews from players. Most players liked Urban Rivals for its gameplay but disliked it for its story.

Urban Rivals is a single player game with multiplayer support.

Similar games include Infinity Wars: Animated Trading Card Game, HEX: Shards of Fate, SolForge, The Elder Scrolls: Legends, GWENT: The Witcher Card Game and others.