Magic: Legends – What to Expect in Open Beta

With Cryptic Studios’ online action-RPG Magic: Legends set to launch into open beta on March 23, 2021, the game’s executive producer Steve Ricossa outlines his team’s philosophy for this stage of Legends’ development and discusses some of the game’s systems in this here video:

Executive Producer Steve Ricossa joins us to outline exactly what you can expect out of the Magic: Legends PC Open Beta. From the team’s philosophy on Beta, to an overview of the game’s basics, and even some teases of what’s ahead – this should give you the perfect 101 on everything Magic: Legends!

Become a Planeswalker in Magic: Legends, an Online Action RPG for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation®4. Ancient forces move in the darkness and it’s up to you to walk the planes of the Magic Multiverse, and gather the power needed to fight this evil. Choose your path through diverse planes, collect unique spells to create powerful spell hands, and control the chaos of battle as you fight to save the Multiverse from its greatest threat yet.

• BECOME A PLANESWALKER – Rise to the challenge and save the Multiverse from its greatest threat yet. Harness the power of five different classes – but don’t worry about picking just one. You can switch between all five as you play.
• WALK YOUR OWN PATH – You’ll need to cross diverse planes and regions to save the Magic Multiverse, but how you weave your path is up to you.
• CONTROL THE CHAOS – Make fast, tactical decisions on the battlefield in real-time combat. Strategically build a deck of spells from your spell library, which will be drawn at random as you fight.
• COLLECT AND UPGRADE – Discover and cast a myriad of spells and collect spell fragments to make them more powerful. Craft your deck to match your desired playstyle.
• FIGHT TOGETHER – Embark on your journey solo or in a group, traversing the planes alone or with up to two other Planeswalkers.

Beyond that, you might want to visit the game’s official website to learn more about its Battle Pass system and Regional Reputations. There’s also this article that announces an upcoming developer livestream.

Finally, if you’d like to learn more about the game, here’s a fresh PC Gamer preview:

As it is with Path of Exile and Diablo, the long tail in any ARPG depends on how much fun it is to build and progress characters, and Legends has the potential for plenty of complexity. You’ve got the usual gear and weapons rolled with stat bonuses. There’s the artifact system, yet more gear with distinct affinities, loot archstones you build around. A key artifact in the build I played with embraced my summoning obsession, calling down an exploding crate for every creature summoned.

I immediately saw what a mess I could make with a goblin summoning ability that continuously called in a swarm of the little buggers for as long as I held the key down and my mana supply kept up. A few minutes in and Magic: Legends already got me to crowd the screen with so many effects and creatures I could barely tell what was going on—a pretty good sign for an ARPG, to my taste.

And here’s one from WCCFTech:

While the customization features are surely going to be the star of the show in Magic: Legends, mission design seems to have received a lot of love as well. During the hands-on session, I played two different story missions that were quite different. The first mission had me exploring a bigger location, moving from one objective to another to reach the chaotic boss battle at the end. The second had a completely different vibe, as I had to activate and then defend for a set amount of time different generators to power a much bigger one. Things got quite hectic in both missions, and it was only the creatures that I was summoning via cards that prevented them from getting ugly. I was playing solo, however, so it’s likely that well-oiled teams of Planeswalkers will have far fewer troubles.