These games sit at opposite ends of the effort spectrum. RAID: Shadow Legends (Plarium, 2018) is a hands-on, turn-based grinder where you make a decision every turn. AFK Journey (Lilith Games, 2024) — the successor to AFK Arena — is a modern idle RPG where battles largely play themselves while you plan the roster around them.
Gameplay & combat
RAID is active: you pick abilities, target enemies, time buffs and cleanses, and manage turn-meter across four-champion teams. AFK Journey is auto-battle on a hex grid, but with a genuinely clever twist — tile placement and terrain matter. You position heroes around flame vents, spikes and choke points and let the map do work, so the strategy lives in setup and formation rather than in-combat inputs. It also carries a striking hand-painted art style and light open-world exploration of its realm, Esperia, that RAID's darker, grittier fantasy doesn't attempt.
Progression & monetisation
- AFK Journey: idle by design — resources bank while you're offline, and the Resonating Hall lets you level a few core heroes and share that level across the roster, so you're not re-grinding every unit. Widely regarded as one of the more generous gacha games; players consistently report competing with spenders without feeling hopeless.
- RAID: demands real session time — energy-gated campaign farming, gear rolling, Masteries — and is far more monetisation-forward, with stacked packs, subscriptions and an infamously heavy ad and influencer presence. Everything is technically earnable, but the grind and spend pressure are real.
Content & endgame
RAID's advantage is depth and breadth: 900+ champions across 16 factions, Clan Boss, Doom Tower, Hydra, Faction Wars and multiple Arena modes, backed by eight years of theorycrafting so someone has already answered every question. AFK Journey is younger and thinner by comparison, but its endgame — Dream Realm boss races, Arena, Legend Trial and seasonal content — is polished and steadily expanding, and it's cross-platform on PC and mobile with cleaner, more contemporary UX.
Which should you play?
Choose AFK Journey if you want a low-friction, beautiful, F2P-friendly collector that respects your time and rewards clever setup over constant input. Choose RAID: Shadow Legends if you want maximum control, the deepest gear and champion optimisation on mobile, and a mountain of content to sink into — accepting a heavier grind and a pushier store. Many players happily run both: AFK Journey as the relaxed daily, RAID as the deep-dive project.
