Build your own army
Chess Evolved Online takes the chess board and fills it with over 500 collectible units. You collect pieces, build a custom army, and put it on the board. Units come with a wide spread of abilities: melee, ranged, magic, passives, triggers, and more. No unit is strictly better than another, and no rarity is treated as stronger, so a clever pick can beat a flashy one. PvP-enabled units have zero RNG, and any ambiguity in a match is resolvable and deterministic. Strategy, tactics, skill, and precision decide the outcome rather than luck.
Play against your group
Live multiplayer PvP is the main way to play together, with ranked and practice modes available. Ranked matchmaking puts you against other players, while practice lets you test an army without stakes. There is also local 2 player for two people on one machine. Beyond PvP, you get PvE daily challenges and scenarios to work through on your own or alongside friends comparing results. Draft mode is also present, and the same no-RNG rule applies there.
Before you start
The game is free to play, lightweight to download, and needs no external signups. It is in Early Access, and development is handled by a single person, so expect ongoing work and report problems through the Steam community discussions or Discord. The art direction favors clear visual information over screenshots, which is meant to speed up the learning curve. The design aims to be easy to pick up while leaving a very high skill ceiling, and the number of possible army matchups is effectively unbounded.