Magicka: Wizard Wars

It's been a couple of years since {Magicka} launched on Steam, and despite what can only be described as a shaky launch (shaky as in high eights on the Richter scale that is), at GDC Paradox unveiled the next iteration of the game - Wizard Wars.

Perhaps a bit lazily described as {Magicka} goes MOBA, but that is about as accurate as calling {Magicka} a Diablo clone. At first glance it's correct assessment, but dig a little deeper and the actual core of the experience is something entirely different.

Wizard Wars is the PvP component of {Magicka} fleshed out and turned into a frantic team-based elimination match where you capture respawn points (three in total as of now), in order to prevent the other team from being able to respawn. This way your left with short intense matches where the initiative can swing back and forth, and there is always a chance for a comeback.

While Wizards Wars retains {Magicka}'s mix and match system for spell casting, it has simplified things a lot, leaving 300-400 combinations making sure there is a countermeasure for each spell.

In fact, the developers we met with, John Hargelid and David Nisshagen, look towards Street Fighter for balanced combat where finding your range and playing mind games come in. With four players and three control points on each map there is a natural tendency for one-on-one and two-on-two duels as the team battle for control.

The pace is faster than in the original, but these duels can still last quite a while as players are aware of what element the opposing player is about to cast and can try and defend accordingly. Still chaos is and will always be part of what makes {Magicka} unique. However, nothing is random or chance here - the chaos is entirely down to the action of the players.

Friendly fire is definitely turned on and we all know what that means. In fact. the 2D artist on the team, a particularly sadistic player, tends to humiliate his opponents by killing them, resurrecting them and killing them again. More rewards, and well, added satisfaction.

There are a couple of interesting mechanics that may or may not remained unchanged as Wizard Wars moves ahead. First there is an in-round progression system in three tiers and you will pick what magick unlocks you will have at each tier. At the first level you gain a magic that benefits you (haste for instance), at the second level you gain some kind of offensive magick, and the third tier brings the what is being referred to as ultimates.

How you combine these with your teammates is going to have a major effect on your game. Another area where the developers are still a bit vague is AI companions. Currently players respawn with two little helpers who while not particularly strong can serve to distract your enemy allowing for you to flank them. That's how these helpers work now, but that may not be the case when the game is released.

In a way the announcement of Magicka: Wizards Wars is a call for fans to make their voices heard and influence the direction of the project. It's still early days, the gameplay shown may have looked polished, but the game is still officially pre-alpha and a lot of design decisions are still up in the air and may change from week to week.

The team, currently made up of 14 strong, use an agile approach to development where they iterate and make sure the game always remains playable and any critical crash bugs are rectified immediately. The game hopes to retain the humorous tone of the original, and although a brand new team is working on it, Arrowhead have had a chance to give their input on it.

Currently the game is being targeted for release on PC, even if the Bitsquid engine does allow for easy ports to consoles. They aren't ruling out console ports at some point, leaving the option of that elusive console {Magicka} game open, and in the same spirit of keeping their options open nothing has been decided with regards to the business model. Will it be free-to-play as the MOBAs it sort of borrows from, or will it set you back a small sum of money with micro-transaction only in the shape of added content later on? Only the wizard overlord knows.