Not too long ago, during the VGAs, I noticed a little trend wherein a traditionally single platform game, League of Legends, was actively trying to diversify itself with a bunch of new single player titles. Personally, I thought it was a great idea hindered only by the fact that LOL's lore is notoriously wishy washy, making it hard to build upon. 'Magic: The Gathering' on the otherhand is so much more robust in that category, and that just makes sense doesn't it, considering that Magic is run by 'Wizards of the Coast'. (The guys behind 'Dungeon's and Dragons'.) With that in mind, it's a no brainer for a 'Magic: The Gathering' extended universe game to be released. Why not expand that card game into something more substantial and build the brand, yada yada... but somehow there has been a little bit of a roadblock in that pursuit.
Before I proceed I shall be fully open for a second, I had no idea about anything surrounding this game until very recently. I had, and have, never played 'Magic: The Gathering' before, my knowledge of the game doesn't expand anywhere past that South Park episode on Magic and the announcement of Magic Legends passed right by me like a fart in a hurricane. But upon learning of the situation, I can't help but find myself entranced due to the odd similarities this all has to the 'Warcraft 3: Reforged' debacle with flying accusations of 'false marketing' and 'poor communication' confusing a community around a game that doesn't look so bad. (Although in fairness I'm told that Warcraft 3 was buggy as all get-out.) So I took a look at what I could find about this game and here's what I saw.
Our story begins all the way back in 2017 when I still had no idea was Magic was and 'Wizards of the Coast' has just gone public with their hiring of Perfect World and it's subsidiary, Cryptic Studios, on a very special project; Magic Legends. Cryptic, who were previously known for creating Neverwinter, Star Trek Online and City of Heroes, would be tasked with putting their MMO crafting abilities on the Magic universe in order to build the next step in it's lore. This would be "a new free-to-play, action MMORPG", which is a collection of words that bodes very ominously if previous experience is to be taken into account. Things get specific in the next bit of the PR, for "as a Planeswalker, you explore amazing worlds, combat powerful creatures and meet the legendary beings that shape the fate of the multiverse", whatever that means. (Oh, will the Monitor and the Anti-Monitor show up then? What about Pariah? I don't think Tom Cavanagh has played enough versions of Harrison Welles yet...)
So far so normal, right? A celebrated crafter of decent-MMOs has secured the rights to make yet another. Of course, now we get the standard trailer announcing the new game, and if you've ever seen a 'Magic: The Gathering' trailer before, you already know exactly what this one contains. A whole bunch of still 3D renders, a few drops of melodrama and a beat drop that's so loud it'll blow out your speakers. Honestly, I do wonder at what studio the Magic team gets to put these trailers together, they're barely any better then what you'd expect out of a 1st year graphics class, is the price of quality really that high? Will the sky fall upon our heads the very second you choose to display some actual honest-to-goodness gameplay in your trailers? (Okay, I'm getting a bit off track.)
After that announcement, you'll likely not be too shocked to hear that the community was treated to a generous helping of silence for the next two years. During this time there could have been any number of developments to the project, (As there evidently were, we'll get to that later) but no one in the teams involved thought it prudent to maintain a single avenue of communication with the audience. You know, the people who would be buying the product. It seems to stupid to shy away from the basic tenets of transparency so much in the modern gaming market, you'd think that No Man's Sky and the like would have roundly taught that lesson to everyone, yet every year there's a studio that has to learn the hard way, and this year it looks like that studio might be Cryptic.
I say this because it was this year that Magic Legends worked it's way back into the spotlight once more with another dull trailer and a revised description on it's website. "Magic Legends (is) an all-new online action RPG." Hang on, aren't you missing something, guys? Maybe the letters 'MMO'? On January 15th this confusion was cleared up a little when we got to see our first gameplay trailer, and we could see quite clearly that this was a title that hails from the genre that I'll just affectionately call 'a Diablo clone'. Now, don't mistake my frankness with disapproval, I'm actually quite the fan of Diablo-type games, but when hype and renown is mounted with the promise of one thing, it kind of sucks for the pay-off to be for something else entirely. (Unless we're talking about a movie twist, in which case that's very much the point.)
The reaction from the public thus far has been very mixed. Some people really like what they are seeing from this game while others are understandably confused about the fact that they were sold on a lie. To be fair, Cryptic at least had the courtesy to let people know that the game isn't what they originally promised, rather than release it and then pray people wouldn't notice. (Like Blizzard essentially did.) This just puts everyone in a weird position wherein they have to judge this game from an entirely new set of eyes. Plus, the crowd that was amassed looking for an MMO isn't going to be anywhere near the diablo-crowd, so I'd call this a grand marketing faux-pas for everyone involved. Look at me, for example; I lack the charisma and friends to play an MMO but I eat up Diablo-clones, and yet I'm hearing of this one because of the controversy it's sparking rather than for the merits of the game itself.
So this isn't quite the huge meltdown that Blizzard are currently up against, but the Magic community are feeling betrayed and that will hurt the ability for this game to grow. To make matters worse, the Diablo-like market of games has become rather crowded in the past couple of years, to the point wherein the next Diablo has already been announced with a substantial gameplay walkthrough. Magic Legends just seems to pale in comparison as it cannot match the muted semi-realism of Diablo nor the quirky colourfulness of titles like Torchlight 2, making this title seem like an inferior choice for everyone involved. The even worser-er part of all this, I don't even think this game'll be a good way to expand the Magic brand, an MMO would have been a much better vehicle. Maybe when the time comes we'll all be proven wrong and Magic Legends will be the next big thing; But I won't hold my breath.
This is all we have to go on for Magic Legends right now, and it's a real shame too. Just like with LOL, I think Magic is a huge universe worth of stories that would be a very interesting well to delve into; but somehow I don't think we'll be getting that. Cryptic will be working outside of their comfort zones to create a non-MMO and fans will be out of a fully-immersive massively multiplayer experience in favour of a gameplay-loop dependant title. It's actually quite amazing what a world of difference there is between the promised game and what we're seeing today, and I'm just struggling to figure out whether this change has been positive or negative. In the coming weeks, it'll be up to Cryptic to explain things with fans and get them on board, or they'll risk allowing the seeds of betrayal that they sewed to bloom. I will remain very interested to hear more on their response, just as I'll remain interested to see if this title ends up being better than it looks.
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