The main story
Wizards of the Coast, owner of the Magic: The Gathering (MTG) franchise, has teamed up with Cryptic Studios and Perfect World to develop a brand new massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) based on the lore and storyline of MTG franchise.
What you should know….
MTG is a card game franchise that has been around for almost a quarter of the century (25 years old next year… they grow up so fast, don’t they?) and has a base of at least 21 million players worldwide. It is a great card game that focuses on the casual crowd as much as it does on the competitive one, with great cash prizes in store for the professionals.
Cryptic Studios has done other noteworthy MMORPGs such as Star Trek Online and City of Heroes. Previously, Perfect World and Cryptic Studios collaborated with Wizards of the Coast to create Neverwinter, a free MMORPG based on the Dungeons & Dragons engine, which has over 15 million players.
Crux of the matter
It is no big secret that they will promote this MMORPG with some connection to the card game, but I am still very enthusiastic to see how they incorporate planeswalkers into an actual MMORPG. Will Ajani have a healing skill tree? Will Elspeth be able to summon soldiers at will? All these possibilities is very exciting and the developers have a lot of backstory and established characters to expand upon.
Cryptic Studios has done a great job with the interface and abilities for City of Heroes, so expect each planeswalker to have unique abilities that are tailored to them. Customizing your character will also be a feature everyone will be looking forward to. Having your very own mind mage wield a sword and summon zombies sounds way too cool to pass up.
While not much has been revealed regarding this partnership as of yet, Wizards has promised that this will be a triple A game.
My take on this
MTG has had a decent video game history so far and they have increased their player base by having free downloadable games such as Duels of the Planeswalkers for both iOS and Android. Hopefully their next venture will be to improve MTG Online to compete with Hearthstone, which has great animations and sound effects.
It won’t be too farfetched to suggest that MTG could be made into a single player campaign game, similar to titles like God of War or it can be done exactly like how Star Wars Battlefront is designed, having major characters duke it out in a PVP style matchup.
What do you think will be crazy about this new franchise? Let us know in our comments section.
Till then, stay gold!
