March of Giants Items: Battleworks, Merits & Upgrades

What Counts as an “Item” in March of Giants?

March of Giants is a free-to-play 4v4 MOBA from Ubisoft in which you command a towering Giant and a marching army instead of a single hero. That shift changes what an “item” even is. There is no six-slot inventory of gold-bought stat sticks here. Instead, March of Giants items fall into four broad categories: the Battleworks you deploy onto the battlefield, the Merits your soldiers collect from camps, the soldier commands you issue for free, and the in-match upgrades that scale your Giant and troops.

Understanding those categories matters because this game deliberately asks more of you than a standard lane matchup does. A preview build shown to press in Montreal made one thing obvious: players who ignore their army lose, regardless of how sharp their mechanics are. Treat this March of Giants items breakdown as a starting framework — the game is still in playtesting ahead of launch, so names and numbers can shift.

Battleworks: The Core March of Giants Items

Battleworks are the closest thing this game has to a traditional item build — except they don’t sit in your inventory. They stand on the map, and their placement is a statement of intent. According to the official March of Giants Steam page, the headline examples are trenches, giant slayer bunkers, cavalry, and soldier drops.

Each one answers a different question. Trenches create chokepoints so a smaller force can hold a lane. Giant slayer bunkers punish an enemy Giant who assumes they can walk into your soldiers alone. Cavalry gives you mobility and fast objective pressure. Soldier drops are instant reinforcement — an army appearing exactly where you need bodies.

The catch: lanes in March of Giants curve and re-route once a bastion falls. A Battlework that was perfect for the current map shape can become dead weight ninety seconds later. Redeploy with the frontline, not with habit.

Merits and Resources: Funding Your Army

Merits are the floating resources that spawn in camps around the map, and they are among the most overlooked March of Giants items in the game. You don’t walk over and scoop them up yourself. You send soldiers. They travel, they do the work, and you stay free to hold a lane, pressure an objective, or set up a Battlework.

That is the core economy lesson here: your income isn’t only about last-hitting minions. It’s about tasking your army efficiently while you do something more valuable. Community reports from early playtests repeatedly highlight this as the moment the game “clicks” for newcomers.

Merits also feed your upgrade tempo. The Steam listing notes that Giants and Soldiers can both be upgraded throughout a match, which means every resource you bank has a direct translation into fighting power later.

Soldiers Are Tools, Not Background Noise

Most new players treat soldiers as scenery that happens to shoot things. The developer commentary is blunt about this: an experienced MOBA player who ignores soldiers will still lose to a less mechanically gifted opponent who uses them well. The soldier system is a two-button control scheme with a surprising amount of depth, and it covers far more than wave pushing.

• Giant damage — a lone Giant facing a full rally is genuinely vulnerable
• Wave pushing — soldier position is the clearest read of who controls the map
• Scouting — send soldiers into bushes instead of buying wards
• Resource collection — they retrieve Merits from camps for you
• Siege dozer repair — they can patch up your push engine
• Objective capture — they overwhelm defenses and secure ground

Player experience from press hands-on sessions suggests the “aha” moment arrives when you stop thinking of soldiers as minions and start treating them as a reusable tool with cooldown-like costs. If you underestimate their presence, you’ll spend a lot of time waiting on a respawn timer.

Upgrade Priority and the “Do They Have Soldiers?” Check

Upgrades are the quiet March of Giants items that decide late-game fights. Because both your Giant and your Soldiers scale during a match, spending choices compound. Prioritize soldier wave strength early, anti-Giant tools and Battleworks in the mid game, and consolidation late so you can protect a siege push when death timers are punishing.

Pair that with a habit borrowed from every good MOBA player: read the minimap constantly. Your side shows up as a sea of friendly dots; empty territory means you’ve lost the area. Then ask the question the developers recommend before every engagement: does that enemy have soldier access right now, and can they get more easily? A strong Giant standing alone is bait. A weak Giant backed by two hundred soldiers is a wall.

For a wider view, our builds hub, map control guide, units explained round out the picture from different angles.