RAID: Shadow Legends vs AFK Arena vs Genshin Impact: Which Is Best in 2026?
A great gacha RPG hooks you with that rush of pulling new characters and the deep satisfaction of building a team that clicks. The App Store has thousands of options promising exactly that, but three games keep dominating the conversation: RAID: Shadow Legends, AFK Arena, and Genshin Impact.
They’re all free-to-play with hero collection and team building, but the similarities end there. RAID offers 900+ champions and deep turn-based tactics, while AFK Arena takes the opposite approach by letting you progress while you sleep. Genshin Impact is a different beast entirely, dropping you into a massive open world with real-time action combat.
So which one deserves space on your phone? We’ve put all three through their paces to help you decide.
At a Glance: RAID: Shadow Legends vs AFK Arena vs Genshin Impact
| Game | Best For | Platforms |
| 1. RAID: Shadow Legends | Strategic players who love deep team building and turn-based combat | iOS, Android, PC (Windows), Mac |
| 2. AFK Arena | Casual players who want idle progression with minimal daily time | iOS, Android, Windows PC |
| 3. Genshin Impact | Exploration fans who want an open world with action combat | PC, PlayStation 4/5, iOS, Android, Xbox Series X/S |
RAID: Shadow Legends vs AFK Arena vs Genshin Impact: Overview
What Is RAID: Shadow Legends?
| Genre: | RPG, Turn-based, Gacha |
| Release Date: | 2018 |
| Platforms: | iOS, Android, PC (Windows), Mac |
| Gameplay Features: | Campaign, Arena PvP, Clan Boss, Dungeons, Faction Wars |
| Developer: | Plarium |
| Best For: | Strategic players who love deep team building and turn-based combat |
RAID: Shadow Legends is a dark fantasy RPG with over 900 champions spread across 15 factions. You build teams, gear them up, and take on everything from story campaigns to brutal dungeon bosses. The combat really clicks once you start pairing champions that combo off each other.
What Are RAID: Shadow Legends’ Top Features?
- 900+ unique champions across 15 factions, each with distinct abilities and roles in your team
- Six champion rarities from Common to Mythical, giving you long-term collection goals
- 12 fully-voiced campaign locations with over 300 champion backstories to discover
- Cross-platform progression so you can play on mobile during lunch and PC at home
- 10+ game modes including PvP arenas, clan boss battles, and faction-specific challenges
What Are RAID: Shadow Legends’ Pros and Cons?
Pros:
- The 3D graphics look really good, with champion models that have actual detail and combat animations that flow smoothly
- Clan Boss is a blast because your whole clan works together to push damage numbers higher every day
- New champions, dungeons, and events drop regularly, so there’s always something fresh to chase
Cons:
- The energy system puts a cap on how much you can grind in one sitting, though it refills steadily over time
- There are a lot of menus to navigate at first, but you figure out what matters pretty quickly
- Free-to-play progression takes patience compared to paying players, though you can earn everything if you stick with it
What Is AFK Arena?
| Genre: | RPG, Idle, Gacha |
| Release Date: | 2019 |
| Platforms: | iOS, Android, Windows PC |
| Gameplay Features: | Campaign, King’s Tower, Arcane Labyrinth, Arena PvP, Guild content |
| Developer: | Lilith Games |
| Best For: | Casual players who want idle progression with minimal daily time |
AFK Arena is an idle game, so it basically plays itself. You collect heroes, set up your team, and the game keeps earning resources even when you close the app. Nearly 200 heroes across 8 factions give you plenty of team combinations to experiment with, and the hand-drawn art style gives everything a storybook feel.
What Are AFK Arena’s Top Features?
- Idle progression system that collects resources while you’re away from the game
- Automatic battles where your heroes fight on their own, with you activating ultimate abilities
- Eight factions with synergies you’ll discover as you experiment with team compositions
- Dimensional crossover heroes from franchises like Assassin’s Creed, Persona, and The Witcher
- Merge token system for upgrading lower rarity heroes into stronger versions
What Are AFK Arena’s Pros and Cons?
Pros:
- The hand-drawn artwork has a storybook look that’s different from the 3D style most games in the genre use
- You can knock out your dailies in about 15 minutes
- Crossover events with Assassin’s Creed, Persona, and The Witcher bring in characters you’ll recognize
Cons:
- Player numbers have dropped off as people moved to the sequel, AFK Journey
- Late game gets rough if you’re not spending money
- Updates have slowed down since AFK Journey launched
What Is Genshin Impact?
| Genre: | Action RPG, Gacha |
| Release Date: | 2020 |
| Platforms: | PC, PlayStation 4/5, iOS, Android, Xbox Series X/S |
| Gameplay Features: | Open world exploration, Domains, Spiral Abyss, Co-op multiplayer, Events |
| Developer: | HoYoverse |
| Best For: | Exploration fans who want an open world with action combat |
Genshin Impact is a massive open world RPG set in Teyvat. You’re climbing mountains, gliding over valleys, and fighting enemies with real-time action combat. Seven nations tied to different elements give you a ton of ground to cover, and the elemental system lets you chain reactions like freezing enemies then shattering them. It plays more like a console game than a typical mobile RPG.
What Are Genshin Impact’s Top Features?
- Massive open world inspired by Breath of the Wild with climbing, gliding, and swimming
- Elemental reaction combat where mixing fire, water, electricity and other elements triggers devastating combos
- Seven playable nations each with different cultures, enemies, and storylines
- Regular major updates adding new regions, characters, and story content
- Anime-style visuals with high production values in voice acting and music
What Are Genshin Impact’s Pros and Cons?
Pros:
- The open world is big, with varied scenery and secrets tucked into every corner
- Voice acting and music are console-quality, which is rare for a mobile game
- New regions and story content drop every few weeks, so there’s always something to come back for
Cons:
- The Resin system caps how much you can accomplish each day, which gets frustrating
- 5-star characters have low drop rates, so pulling specific characters takes luck or a lot of saved currency
- The game eats storage space, and every update makes it worse
RAID: Shadow Legends vs AFK Arena vs Genshin Impact: Detailed Comparison
Gameplay and Controls
RAID: Shadow Legends and Genshin Impact both ask for your full attention, but in different ways. RAID’s turn-based battles let you think through each move, pick your targets, and time your abilities. Genshin wants you dodging attacks and swapping characters mid-combo in real time.
AFK Arena sits in a completely different camp. Battles play out automatically while you watch. You can tap to trigger ultimate abilities, but most of the time you’re just watching your team do their thing. If you want something you can check during work breaks and still make progress, AFK Arena fits that need.
Graphics
Genshin Impact has the most demanding visuals of the three, with anime-style art, fluid animations, and massive draw distances. It also eats storage space and battery life, so keep that in mind.
RAID: Shadow Legends goes for detailed 3D champion models with a dark fantasy look. The character designs have real personality, and the combat animations are smooth even on mid-range phones. AFK Arena takes a different approach with hand-drawn 2D art that has a storybook feel to it.
Story and Narrative
RAID: Shadow Legends has 12 fully-voiced campaign locations and over 300 champion backstories to dig into. The dark fantasy setting ties everything together, and there’s actual lore connecting the factions if you want to pay attention to it.
Genshin Impact puts more emphasis on its main storyline with lengthy quests and character arcs. AFK Arena keeps things lighter with faction lore and hero backstories, but most players skip through it to get to the gameplay.
Multiplayer Options
RAID: Shadow Legends:
- Arena PvP: Climb rankings by building teams that counter the meta
- Clan Boss: Daily battles where your whole clan teams up against a massive demon
- Dungeons: Farm gear and champion shards with repeatable runs
- Faction Wars: Use champions from specific factions to clear restricted content
- Tag Team Arena: 3v3 battles using multiple teams in sequence
AFK Arena:
- Arena PvP: Asynchronous battles against other players’ teams
- King’s Tower: Push through increasingly difficult floors for rewards
- Guild Hunts: Collaborative boss battles with your guildmates
- Arcane Labyrinth: Roguelike runs collecting relics and fighting through stages
Genshin Impact:
- Co-op mode: Explore and fight alongside up to 3 friends in real-time
- Domains: Instanced dungeons for farming character materials
- Spiral Abyss: The main endgame challenge with rotating enemy layouts
- Limited events: Regular temporary content with event-specific rewards
Performance
Genshin Impact needs serious hardware. Older phones will run it, but you’ll be looking at lower graphics settings and longer load times. The game also takes up a lot of storage, with each update adding more.
RAID: Shadow Legends and AFK Arena both run smoothly on mid-range devices. RAID’s 3D graphics are well optimized, and AFK Arena’s 2D art keeps things light. If your phone is a few years old, these two will treat it better.
Monetization
All three are free-to-play with optional purchases. RAID: Shadow Legends offers shard packs, energy refills, and battle passes. Free players can grind dungeons and events for shards, and the game regularly runs fusion events where you can earn specific champions without spending.
AFK Arena started with a reputation for being generous, though late-game competition favors spenders. Genshin Impact hides its monetization behind the wishing system. The base game is free, but pulling for specific 5-star characters means saving up Primogems for weeks or buying them.
Support
RAID: Shadow Legends has been around since 2018 with an established community. Discord servers, YouTube guides, and wiki pages cover everything from beginner tips to endgame optimization. Joining a clan also connects you with veteran players who can point you in the right direction.
Genshin Impact’s community might be the most active of the three, with Reddit, Discord, and dedicated fansites overflowing with theorycrafting, leaks, and guides. AFK Arena’s resources are solid but the community has shrunk as players migrated to AFK Journey.
What Should New Players Focus on First in RAID: Shadow Legends?
Start with the campaign. The 12 fully-voiced locations introduce you to the game’s mechanics while you build up your first team. You’ll unlock new champions, earn gear, and get a feel for how turn-based combat works before diving into harder content.
Join a clan when you can. Clans let you fight the Clan Boss together with other players, which gives you rewards you can’t get solo. It’s also a good way to learn from more experienced players.
Don’t worry about collecting every champion right away. With 900+ champions across 15 factions, you’ll be building your roster for a long time. Focus on a core team first and expand from there.
How Do Champion Factions Work in RAID: Shadow Legends?
RAID: Shadow Legends has 15 factions, and your 900+ champions are spread across all of them. At first this just seems like flavor, but then you hit Faction Wars and realize you need to build separate teams for each faction.
It’s a clever way to keep you collecting. You can’t just max out five champions and coast forever. That amazing team you built for dungeons? Useless in Faction Wars if they’re all from different factions. So you’re always looking for that next good pull to fill a gap.
Some champions also buff their faction mates specifically, so there’s real payoff for stacking multiple champions from the same faction on a team.
Why RAID: Shadow Legends Is the Best RPG
RAID: Shadow Legends gives you 900+ champions to collect across 15 factions, and figuring out which ones work together is half the fun. The turn-based combat actually makes you think about turn order, debuffs, and ability timing instead of just tapping through animations.
The clan features add a social layer that keeps things interesting. Fighting Clan Boss with your guildmates and watching your damage numbers climb over time is genuinely satisfying. And with regular updates adding new champions and content, there’s always something new to chase.
Try RAID: Shadow Legends and see if it clicks for you.
FAQs: RAID: Shadow Legends vs AFK Arena vs Genshin Impact
Which gacha game is the most free-to-play friendly?
RAID: Shadow Legends lets you grind for everything in the game without hitting a paywall. It takes time, but free players can build competitive rosters through dungeons, events, and fusions.
AFK Arena is generous early on but gets tough in late-game PvP if you’re not spending. Genshin Impact gives you a huge free world to explore, but pulling the 5-star character you want takes a lot of luck or a lot of saved currency.
Is RAID: Shadow Legends or AFK Arena better for casual players?
RAID: Shadow Legends works well for casual players who want to actually play their game. You can run a few dungeon battles or arena fights in short sessions, and the turn-based combat means you can put your phone down mid-battle if you need to.
AFK Arena is more hands-off since it plays itself while you’re gone. But if you want to feel like you’re doing something when you log in, RAID gives you that.
Can you play RAID: Shadow Legends on PC?
Yes, RAID: Shadow Legends has a PC client through the Plarium launcher or Microsoft Store. Your progress syncs between mobile and PC, so you can play on your phone and pick up where you left off on your computer.
Which game is best for beginners who are new to gacha RPGs?
RAID: Shadow Legends does a good job teaching you how gacha games work. The early game introduces champion roles, team building, and dungeons without throwing everything at you at once. You can mess around with different teams and learn from your mistakes.
How many champions are in RAID: Shadow Legends?
RAID: Shadow Legends has over 900 champions spread across 15 factions. They range from Common to Mythical rarity, so there’s always someone new to chase. You won’t collect them all, but that’s part of what keeps the game interesting long-term.
Can you play RAID: Shadow Legends with friends?
Yes. You can join a clan and fight the Clan Boss together, which is one of the main ways to earn good rewards. Clans also give you a place to chat, ask for advice, and coordinate with other players. There’s no real-time co-op in battles, but the clan system adds a solid social layer.
