Magicka: Wizard Wars

Magicka: Wizard Wars Review

By Sean Sullivan

Launching Magicka: Wizard Wars for the first time, I expected a clone capitalizing on the hyper excitement for MOBAs. Luckily, I was wrong. A MOBA stylized game mode is only one out of three and its emphasis on typical MOBA paradigms takes a backseat to Wizard War’s quirky atmosphere and stunning effects. Expanding on Paradox Interactive’s Magicka universe, Wizard Wars delivers fast-paced combat through a distinct system that is simple to understand but difficult to master. Combining nature’s elements into powerful spells to tear apart enemies and fortify your defenses requires a cool temperament and quick reflexes.

Magicka School Of Killing Wizards

In Magicka’s skill-based combat system, the better wizard always wins. That maxim was evident in my first match as one wizard turned the water in my body to ice and I watched my pygmy body flattened into a pulpy mess. Eight elements—water, lightning, life, arcane, shield, earth, cold, and fire—and two sub-elements—steam and ice—can be combined to form over 100 offensive and defensive spells. The magnitude of combinations can be bemusing at first. However, Wizard Wars’ simple system makes it easy to play with abilities until you’re confident enough to employ spells.

Elements are hotkeyed to “Q,” “W,” “E,” and so on and activating them is as easy as pressing the key. Queue up to three elements to create an effect or combine the same element to enhance its effect. Each elements has rules that govern how they can be combined and used. Some elements cancel each other out like Arcane and Life. Whereas others can be combined in amusing ways to create landmines like when mixing Fire, Arcane, and Shield.

Defensive combinations enable players to summon magical barriers or magical walls designed to deflect projectiles or a particular element. Combining Shield with the projectile spell creates a rock wall that reflects Lightning projectiles. I found myself spamming the simple Shield spell constantly. It deflects spells like Death and stuns an attacker, perfect for fleeing—my typical role in the early stages of playing.

Beyond standard elemental spells, every player is allotted four special moves, or Magicks—the “Ultimates” of Wizard Wars. You choose which Magicks you want to equip before the match starts. While not starting with too many, you are given a move that summons fiery meteors from above to reign down terror at random points in a designated area. As I played, I eventually unlocked the Grim Reaper, who takes a moment from her chess game to deal ludicrous amount of damage to nearby enemy players. Magicks can’t be used too often so it’s best to save them for strategic moments or epic firefights.

Battle Royale… With Magic 

Out of the three gameplay modes, Wizard Warfare is easily my favorite. It emphasizes the essence of Wizard Wars—quick, action packed, cooperative play that pits players against each other in heated battles. Spells light up the screen as wizards converge in a brutal arena. Teams capture spawn points scattered around the arena by standing on them. If one team’s members die when they don’t have any spawn points they lose. Or, if one team runs out of their allotted lives they lose. Matches quickly turn to chaos as you fight for spawn points and magicians flank you with laser beams of death from afar.

When I first started, I wanted to focus on using lightning spells because the effect made my character look like a Tesla Coil (and I couldn’t focus on more than one elemental magic at a time). But I had to give up being a transformer. Lightning spells bounce from one player to the next and as I attacked enemies I inadvertently shocked my teammates, and spent more time healing them out of guilt than attacking, ultimately culminating in the death of one noble blue wizard. Foregoing seppuku, I settled on using death spells because they created a tight beam I could direct at single targets.

Weaving between the map with my team, we were constantly engaging in epic battles with our opponents. Many of my games came down to zero respawns on either team with fierce fights where we one of us managed to sneak away amidst the chaos to recover and hurtle meteors at our opponents. Because the matches don’t take very long, they're a pleasure to jump in and out of, easy to pick up and play. The same can’t be said for Wizard Warfare’s interpretation of a MOBA experience.

Tiresome Moba Gameplay

Wizard Warfare’s Moba game mode, called Soul Harvest, is a bit boring and deviates from the core gameplay that I had come to love to Wizard Wars. Soul Harvest sees eight players on a three-lane map, complete with creeps, and a home base with an Effigy that must be destroyed to win. Each team of four must harvest souls by killing creeps on the map. Once one team has acquired 300 souls their opponents base defenses drop and they are free to run in and begin attacking the Effigy. It follows typical rules laid out since Dota. But Soul Harvest turns into a drag that becomes repetitive and time consuming.

In Soul Harvest, you don’t have to attack other players to win. Killing enemy wizards doesn’t serve much of a benefit since there is no experience, skills, or items to gain in the game mode. The enemy team is more like a wasp stuck in your house. It’s annoying and it might attack you but it’s a distraction. Your motive in Soul Harvest is to collect souls by killing creeps so I veered away from enemy players. I wandered through the jungles to kill creeps as they spawned and collected souls. And once you’ve developed a formula for killing creeps it becomes a rinse, wash, repeat until defenses are down and then blow up the Effigy. I laid down mines and then death lasered creeps from afar, over and over again.

There are “Boss” creeps on the map that do act as a catalyst for group fights. The troll drops a monstrous number of souls and both teams clamor for it. So you end up with a team fight while the troll swings his club and cuts a couple of players in half. But you can see that Soul Harvest is not the highlight of Wizard Wars by watching players’ portraits. In most games I played, at least one or two people disconnected. It’s fair to say that maybe their disconnection had to do with internet issues or the game's buggy connection issues. But I’m not opposed to speculating that they simply “Alt + F4’d” to get back to Wizard Warfare. There’s no penalty for doing so, unlike say League of Legends where you can be reported. Soul Harvest dragged on for far too long. I would rather duel.

A Fight For Honor

Dueling is exactly what it sounds like. Test your might in single combat against another player. Whoever secures the most victories wins. It's a nice way to test your skills and aptitude at combining elements without worrying about getting flanked by players. It can be unbalanced as you don’t know what kind of player you’re up against and there is no matchmaking system. I was vastly overpowered by players who know the game's combos and it felt like one player was toying with me as he deflected nearly every spell I cast at him. I didn't spend as much time in the dueling grounds as I did in Wizard Warfare. I wanted to unlock better gear, items, and spells before testing my wizardry against other players.

A WinRaR Is You

Winning games unlocks Mastery Tokens that can unlock new items and skills. Since I was choosing to pursue the route of a death-dealing wizard, my first purchase was the Warlock’s Staff that gave me +10 to death spells. And then following the death wizard tree, I unlocked the Grim Reaper Magicka that attacks players nearby for a ludicrous amount of damage. There is a cash shop in game where you can buy XP boosters, weapons, robes trinkets, etc. You earn the game's in-game currency, Crowns, for every match played. But you can purchase Crowns from the shop at 100,000 Crowns for approximately 10 dollars. That will pretty much buy you any gear you want.

Is it overpowered? Slightly. But even if new players buy a started pack with gear that boosts one of their elemental spells, they have to be skilled enough to use those spells to win. I never came across a player who seemed overpowered by virtue of their items. The ones who were overpowered utilized the arsenal of available abilities to chip away at enemies with finesse.

There are also treasure chests that award random loot based on how many wins you’ve had that can only be opened with magic keys. Treasure chests can contain items like Crowns, Magick crystals, or exclusive skins. The game allots you three magic keys just for playing but additional keys must be purchased from the in-game store. A rarity multiplier increases when you win ten games, but resets every day so you can’t stack wins to max out the multiplier.

Final Verdict – Great

Magicka: Wizard Wars is a fantastic PvP game perfect for playing with friends. The unique combat system makes for a surfeit of possibilities as players hastily combine elements to both attack and defend. The simple interface is difficult to master but a joy to play even when it seems overwhelming. While the MOBA game mode fails to offer anything new and becomes tedious, Wizard Warfare and dueling are perfect for action-packed gameplay with spectacular effects and humor.

Magicka: Wizard Wars Screenshots

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Magicka: Wizard Wars Videos

Magicka: Wizard Wars Links

Magicka: Wizard Wars Official Site
Magicka: Wizard Wars Steam Store
Magicka: Wizard Wars Magickapedia [Database/Guides]

Magicka: Wizard Wars Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Operating System: Windows Vista SP2 or later
CPU: 2.4 GHz Dual Core CPU
RAM: 2 GB RAM
Video Card: 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9800 / ATI
Hard Disk Space: 2 GB available space

Recommended Requirements:

Operating System: Windows Vista SP2 or later
CPU: 2.4 GHz Dual Core CPU
RAM: 4 GB RAM
Video Card: 512Mb Nvidia GeForce 440 / AMD Radeon 5670 or greater
Hard Disk Space: 2 GB available space

Magicka: Wizard Wars Music

Coming Soon!

Magicka: Wizard Wars Additional Information

Developer(s): Paradox Earth
Publisher(s): Paradox Interactive

Announcement Date: March 25, 2013

Steam Early Access (Alpha): October 15, 2013
Open Beta: May 27, 2014
Release Date: May 27, 2014

Shutdown Date: July 21, 2016

Development History / Background:

Magicka: Wizard Wars is published by Swedish video game publisher Paradox Interactive. Wizard Wars uses the dynamic spellcasting system featured in Arrowhead Game Studios’ Magicka and brings it to a competitive PvP environment. It is the first game developed by Paradox North, a studio created within Paradox Interactive. An early alpha build of Wizard Wars was made available to backers of the game on Steam Early Access on October 15, 2013. The first novel, titled Magicka: The Ninth Element, was released on November 14, 2013, written by Dan McGirt. Wizard Wars was released as free-to-play on Steam on May 27, 2014. Paradox Interactive announced that Magicka: Wizard Wars would be shutting down on July 21, 2016.