When Wizards of the Coast announced that work was being done on a Magic the Gathering “MMO” during the 2019 Game Awards ceremonies, I was cautiously intrigued. While the concept was appealing, I honestly didn’t trust that the game would be work. Later, they corrected misconceptions to make it clear the game was an Action RPG in the vein of Diablo. It seemed like that would be difficult to screw up, so I allowed myself to raise my hopes.
That’ll teach me to get excited about video games…
It is difficult to me to express just how disappointing this game turned out to be on every possible level.
Some of this can be chalked up to the Open Beta status. Through my time with it, and even in the recording, I saw subtitles that barely matched what was being performed by the voice actors. Lines would get cut off as if the next piece of spoken dialog was mistimed. Levels felt empty, barely evoking the plane and setting that are supposedly representing. Combat is floaty, with little in the way of anything that approximates a challenge. And even on the lowest possible settings, I was getting below 30 FPS. All of this makes for a poor showing, even in a Open Beta, but these are things that can be fixed and adjusted over time.
What can’t be fixed is how Magic: Legends is inexorably tied to predatory microtransaction-laden business models. So many of the unlocks, including the first and currently only prestige class as of the time of writing, are gated behind loot boxes in the form of booster packs. If I wanted to avoid spending real world money, I could buy it off the in-game auction house. However, there’s no earthly I could practically grind enough in-game gold to purchase it in a reason amount of playtime. Throwing in a starter bundle that costs a full $40 worth of funny money, and a battlepass system they somehow attached to a Diablo-like, ever aspect of progression seems tailor-made to milk players for as much money as it can.
It’s painful to watch, because the concept of deck-building for a ARPG, to bring that aspect of MTG to the genre, is a cool idea. A lot of thought and care was put into that system, and it’s going to waste on this game.
I couldn’t be more disappointed.
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