Raid: Shadow Legends
A collection RPG with randomization stacked on randomization — and the widest gap on this site between what people claim it costs and what can actually be published.
- Is Raid: Shadow Legends pay to win?
- Yes. Money buys competitive power here, not just appearance — which is what the term actually means. It scores 92 out of 100 on our monetization pressure index.
- How long to beat Raid: Shadow Legends?
- It has no ending. This is a live-service game built to run indefinitely, so there is no finish line to measure — that is a fact about how it is made, not a gap in our research.
The cost, in short
Pressure
092
To ending
— — —
No scripted ending — live service
Can you read the odds before you pay?
We found no published table
We searched on 5 September 2026 and found no published Plarium table. The figures that circulate — one in 200 from an Ancient Shard, a mercy counter — are compiled by players and forums. This is a statement about our search, not about the publisher staying silent: disclosure inside the app stores is required by Apple and Google, and we cannot see it from outside.
How this rating was reached
Score of 92/100 sits between Genshin Impact (78) and Diablo Immortal (98): randomization is stacked across two independent systems (champion shards and gear/artifacts), an energy meter gates campaign progress, and limited-time offers run continuously. Held below 98 because Diablo Immortal's ceiling is anchored by published third-party cost calculations built on the game's own drop rates. No cost-to-progress figure is published. Plarium states none, and community estimates span roughly $40 for one targeted legendary champion to over $1,000,000 for a full collection (HellHades), growing $150,000-$170,000 per patch. That is a difference in the definition of 'progress', not a margin of error, so no single number is publishable. The game has no ending because this is a live-service collection RPG with no final chapter — not a measurement gap.
What the monetization actually looks like
Champions come from Shards, which are opened for a randomized result across six rarity tiers. Plarium's own store page carries the disclosure "Contains In-game purchases (including random items)" and advertises over 900 champions to collect, which tells you the shape of the system before you install anything.
The randomization does not stop at the champion. Gear and artifacts come from their own separate randomized system, so a specific strong champion with the right gear requires favourable outcomes from two independent chance mechanics rather than one. On top of both sits an energy meter that gates how much campaign progress you can make in a session without paying.
Why we publish no cost figure, and what the estimates actually say
Plarium publishes no cost-to-progress figure. What circulates instead are community calculations, and they disagree by roughly four orders of magnitude depending on what "progress" is taken to mean.
At one end, players report acquiring a specific legendary champion for around $40 through a targeted champion pass. At the other, the community site HellHades calculated the cost of collecting one of every Legendary and Mythical champion at over $1 million, growing by $150,000-$170,000 with each content patch.
Both numbers are real answers to different questions. Neither is "what the game costs", and averaging them would produce a figure describing nothing at all. So the field stays empty and the mechanic gets explained instead — which is the more useful answer anyway.
No ending, by design
The campaign runs twelve levels of seven stages, but the game is an ongoing live-service collection RPG. There is no final chapter and no point at which the champion roster is complete, because more champions ship with every patch.
Related games
- EA Sports FC Ultimate Team
Pay-to-win · pressure 88
- Marvel Strike Force
Pay-to-win · pressure 88
- Diablo Immortal
Pay-to-win · pressure 98
Sources
- 01RAID: Shadow Legends — official page with purchase disclosuresPlarium (official game page) ·
Full method behind these ratings: see our methodology.
Ratings are editorial judgments based on the sources cited above. They are not a guarantee of current pricing or mechanics, which can change after publication — check the source directly before making a purchase decision.