Heads up Magic the Gathering fans, a brand new game is headed your way and its called Magic Duels : Origins. The game was debuted at E3 this year, giving players and fans alike a look at a game that’s not just focused on one-on-one card battles but is mostly aimed at bringing in new players with an easy to digest form that doesn’t take away from the overall experience of Magic.
Origins is set to debut on Steam for PC, XBOX ONE and iOS platform come July. Oh and did we mention the game is absolutely free?
Magic the Gathering (MTG) is well known for being a strategy based card game that has been around for a good many years, and has made its way onto the digital platform on more than one occasion. For the last few years the company has been producing games every year with limited success and after getting feedback from fans, have put this feedback to good use for Origins.
People who have played Magic 2015 before would find themselves a very familiar interface with some minor changes, that mostly streamlines gameplay.
For starters, they have totally done away with the purchase system that was a large part of Magic 2015, which involved a fair bit of real cash and replaced it with a system where almost everything can be bought with earned gold. You can still pay cash to get more gold or to purchase additional extras but these don’t impact gameplay much, so as to not give cash spenders an unfair advantage over the rest.
The game also seeks to keep things interesting for players by way of daily quests to earn more gold, so you won’t really be getting bored any time soon while earning the moolah to get boosters.
Also, Origins will feature a much more intuitive guided deckbuilding system for those starting out (or are just plain feeling lazy) as well as more traditional card-by-card deckbuilding for more seasoned players. This is great considering it can take ages to put a deck together and those looking to just jump straight in will benefit most from this.
The four player Two-Headed Giant mode has made a return as well, allowing players to battle with friends over LAN and online with randomly selected team mates or opponents. The game won’t be having any social media integration so nobody is going to be able send you game requests and invites for gold! However the option to play with your buddies on Steam is available for the PC version but sadly the game will not be supporting cross-platform integration.
To top it off, this will be the first game that features playable Planeswalkers and will put a lot of emphasis on their stories with the Story Mode which is a great way to get acquainted with the lore behind some of the most powerful characters in the franchise. Personally we are looking forward a lot to this bit because we not only get a peek at their origin stories but find out more about the five core Planeswalkers being focused on in Origins, namely Gideon, Jace, Lilliana, Chandra and Nissa each representing their colours.
Origins is set to update with new packs and cards when new sets come out to keep the game up to date with the current Standard cards.
No word yet on whether or not Android users will get to play Magic Duels : Origins but the game will become available for the PlayStation 4 in August.
Check out the trailer below to get a taste of the action:
