How this site is paid
Pulse Group Online carries paid affiliate links. There is one advertiser on this site: the publisher of Raid: Shadow Legends, which pays us a fixed fee when a reader follows our link, registers on the advertiser's own page, installs the game and starts the tutorial. Nothing is added to what a reader pays, and the advertiser cannot buy a sentence, a heading or a position on any page here. What it has bought is the link itself, and we would rather say so in ordinary type than bury it. The affiliate disclosure page sets out the arrangement in full, including the part most sites leave out: that our coverage of individual products is narrow because commercial relationships are narrow.
Start from how you actually play, not from the trailer
Battle collection role-playing games — the genre that mixes a roster of collectable characters with turn-based combat and a long progression curve — are designed to be judged in the first twenty minutes and lived with for two years. The trailer, the opening cinematic and the generous early rewards all belong to the first twenty minutes. The parts that decide whether you are still playing next winter are duller and easier to check in advance: how long a session has to be before it feels worthwhile, whether progress continues while you are not playing, how much of the roster is reachable without spending, and how the game behaves on the machine you own.
That is the order this site works in. Every guide starts from a decision a reader is actually making — should I start this genre, what will it cost, is it suitable for the person playing, can my computer run it — and stops where the answer becomes personal taste. We do not score or rank games, because a score compresses the thing that matters most, which is fit.
The reader we have in mind is in Australia, playing on a desktop or laptop rather than a phone, and somewhere between curious and sceptical. Australian consumer law, classification and support services run through the guides wherever they change the practical answer.
Four questions that settle most of it
How much unattended progress is there?
Collection RPGs vary enormously in how much they advance while closed. A title built on auto-battle and offline rewards suits a half-hour evening; one built on live events suits someone who can log in at set times. Choosing the wrong one is the most common reason people stop within a month.
What does the roster cost in time?
Characters are usually obtained through randomised draws, sometimes purchasable, sometimes earned. The useful measure is not the headline roster size but how long it takes to build one team that clears ordinary content.
Where does the money go, and when?
Spending here is rarely one purchase. It is a monthly pass, an event bundle, a top-up. Our guide to in-game purchases works out a realistic yearly figure in Australian dollars before you start.
Who is going to be playing?
Classification, randomised rewards and chat features all matter more when the player is a teenager sharing the family computer. The classification guide covers how to check a specific title rather than guessing from the art style.
Three shapes the genre takes
Marketing describes every one of these games in much the same way. The playing experience differs sharply, and the difference is visible in the systems rather than the setting.
| Structure | Typical session | What it rewards | Where it frustrates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Campaign-led | 20–40 minutes, whenever you like | Working through staged content at your own pace; story and voice work carry the experience | Progress slows sharply once the campaign is finished if the later content is built for groups |
| Roster-led | Short but frequent; energy or stamina caps the session | Planning, team composition and patient upgrading over months | The gap between a starter team and a competitive one is measured in months or money |
| Event-led | Fixed windows, often daily | Consistency and availability at particular times | Missing a fortnight can cost a reward that never returns |
What we cover, and why the list is short
Pulse Group Online writes in depth about the genre and in detail about one product: Raid: Shadow Legends, the title we have a commercial relationship with. We say so rather than presenting a shortlist that looks like a survey of the market. The genre material stands on its own: if you read the guides, decide the genre is not for you and never click an advertiser link, the site has done its job. Our About page sets out the method in full, including what we do not test and cannot verify.
The advertised title, described as its publisher describes it
Raid: Shadow Legends is the product advertised on this site. Its publisher describes it as a battle collection RPG in which you assemble an alliance of Champions and lead them through dungeons, Clan Boss fights and a fully voiced campaign across twelve locations, with tactical player-versus-environment combat where team composition decides outcomes. The advertised action is specific: register on the landing page, install the game and launch the tutorial.
Beyond that, we describe nothing. We have not been given pricing, purchase details, hardware requirements or a classification, so this site states none of them. The game profile separates what the publisher states from what a reader still has to check on the vendor's own site.
Paid link. Pulse Group Online is paid a fixed fee if you register and start playing through it; your costs are unaffected either way.
Visit the Raid: Shadow Legends website
Australian context that changes the answer
Three Australian bodies matter to anyone spending money or time on a game, and each does something specific.
- Australian Classification Board
- Classifies computer games sold or distributed in Australia and publishes the classifications and consumer advice. If you want to know how a particular game is classified, the Board's own material is the source to use rather than a store listing. See classification.gov.au.
- Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
- Administers the Australian Consumer Law, which applies to digital products and in-game purchases bought by Australian consumers, and publishes guidance on consumer guarantees and misleading conduct. See accc.gov.au.
- eSafety Commissioner
- Australia's regulator for online safety, with published advice for parents and young people about games, chat and reporting. See esafety.gov.au.
Two more are worth knowing before you need them: Scamwatch, run by the National Anti-Scam Centre, for reporting scams, and the Australian Cyber Security Centre, for practical account security guidance. Both are used in our account safety guide, where they are relevant rather than decorative.
Where to go next
- Choosing a battle collection RPG — the full decision framework, with the questions to ask before installing anything.
- Playing on a desktop computer — what a phone-first game does differently on a PC, and how to set it up sensibly.
- In-game purchases and randomised rewards — building a realistic annual figure in Australian dollars, and your rights if a purchase fails.
- Classification and age suitability — who classifies games here, and what to check for a household with younger players.
- Account safety and scams — how accounts are actually lost, and where to report an attempt.
- Game profile: Raid: Shadow Legends — publisher statements, separated from open questions.
What you will not find here
No scores, no ranked lists, no testimonials and no claims about how many people play anything. We run no benchmarks and hold no review copies, so nothing here is presented as inside knowledge; where a fact belongs to a regulator or a publisher, we link to them and let them say it. The site also collects nothing — no form, no newsletter, no tracking — which is why there is no consent banner. The cookie policy explains that position and the privacy policy describes the only data that exists.