Magicka: Wizard Wars' MOBA-tastic Simplicity

I'm not a very good wizard, and I can accept that. When I played early access preview of Magicka: Wizard Wars last week, I found that I've forgotten many of the spell combinations I'd known so well from the 2011 action-adventure game, and I thus ended up frying or electrocuting many of my teammates in this new MOBA-inspired take on the concept. Fortunately, they all appeared to be in the same boat. We died, we killed, we laughed— and we willingly got up and did it all over again. And now, with the release of early access on Steam, you can jump in as well.

The gameplay of Magicka: Wizard Wars centers on drawing from eight different elements to concoct supremely powerful spells for both offensive and defensive purposes. In one of the simplest and most well-known formulae, for instance, you can douse a player with a water spell and then follow it up with a shock blast for a sizzling experience. The elements themselves are bounded to the familiar hotkeys Q,W, E, R, A, S, D, and F, and the staggering diversity and potential for speed inherent in that blueprint inherent ensures that Wizard Wars' four-on-four matches can shift tides within seconds.

That said, it's not as complex as it could have been. The original Magicka prided itself on scores of multi-button combinations that would have pleased fans of Street Fighter IV's dizzying button acrobatics, whereas here Paradox has limited the maximum number of elements you can queue up to three. Put it this way – that amounted to around 40,000 spell combinations in Magicka proper; in Wizard Wars, you have around 400. That may seem limiting at first, but in my experience it maintains a frantic pace of combat (as well as a welcome dose of accessibility), which in itself helps lead to relatively short five- or 10-minute long matches.

According to lead designer David Nisshagen, it's also an idea that was at least partly inspired by community feedback after Paradox implemented PvP battles for the core Magicka experience after release. The PvP addition was wildly popular – much more so than Nisshagen initially imagined – and its success largely lies at the heart of creation of Wizard Wars. That community interaction remains dear to Paradox, so much so that they claim they're opening early access in order to shape it into the kind of game its players want to play.

What I saw is a very rough draft, Nisshagen was eager to point out, but it's a noticeably polished one. That's partly because it's so focused. Just a single wooded map was available with one game mode at the time of writing, but it worked well enough to bear the promise of better stuff to come. As it is, you and the three other members of your team fight for control of three nodes spread across the map in a triangular pattern, and while respawns take only a matter of seconds, Paradox limits the number of respawn tokens each team has for the round.

Force a team to spend all its respawn tokens and you can win through sheer slaughter alone, or you can go for a more tactical win and capture all three bases (thus preventing the other team from spawning). It's a smart if chaotic design, as it ensures that there's a reason for every player to stay in action out on the map if they expect to win.

It helps, too, that the combat's simply fun. In addition to the arsenal of core spell combinations, there's also powerful "magicks" that fill a meter as you slay other players, thereby adding an extra element of strategy. Haste, for instance, is the simplest, and it's tempting to blow if it if there's an unguarded node in a short distance in front of you ripe for the capture. Conserve your points, however, and you can unleash a devastating meteor attack with the potential to leave everyone dead in its wake. And thanks to Magicka's reliance on friendly fire for accidental kills that could be set to Yakety Sax, that extends to your friends as well.

In some ways, that worries me. I had fun at the press event precisely because we were experimenting with a promising game that still has no "culture" to speak of, but that could change once Magicka: Wizardry Wars settles into maturity. I found it fun, in short, because so little was expected of us, but that could change once Wizard Wars starts attracting the same caustic band who frequents games like League of Legends and DoTA 2. Wizard Wars' emphasis on friendly fire makes the potential for unbridled asshattery all the greater, and that could prove disastrous for Magicka's well-established reputation for whimsy and fun. Just a thought.

One of the benefits to jumping into early access is that you'll be witnessing the game in its purest state. It's not exactly Hearthstone, but even at this early stage there's already a lot to admire, whether it's in the way it lets you join groups with your friends or customize your mage based on the small sampling of available gear. Keep in mind, though, that you'll still find many blanks. Paradox still hasn't figured out what they plan to do with the cash shop once they implement the full free-to-play model, and as of right now, it's not exactly clear what experience does.

Still, even now it's fun, and that's arguably the most important step. If Paradox shows itself as adept at implementing balance and adding new content as it is at conjuring up freaky effects for the most arcane combinations of elements, then it easily has another big win on its hands.