PAX East Spotlight: Magic Legends

By Lowfat

Magic Legends is the upcoming action RPG from CrypticStudios. Fans familiar with the Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance series willhappily find themselves in familiar territory here, albeit with more than a fewupdates.

The graphics and music are suitably epic. Orchestral swells abound as the top-down vantage point follows up to three players as they blast and hack their way through scores of undead, monsters, and more.

The demo showcased two of the five class choices, one per mana type. Although all are damage-dealers, the flavor of that damage is up to the player. For example, the Mind Mage utilizes blue mana to hurl projectiles and put enemies to sleep. Tempting; however, I chose to play as the Geomancer, who uses red mana to summon beasts like a rock elemental, then a second rock elemental that exploded in a shower of ash and cinder. I even summoned a flame kavu: think a cross between a boar and a dinosaur that belches fireballs.

Combat in Magic Legends is interesting. Like a real-world game of Magic: the Gathering, you build a deck of cards from your spell library and, as you play through the level, you draw those cards at random and cast them when you deem most appropriate. This uncertainty mixed with strategy adds a unique spin the spell selection process, since there is no guarantee which spells the player will be able to cast next. This kept the game fresh, and definitely kept me wanting to see more.

Magic: Legends will be available sometime in 2021 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.