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The Last Spell’s magic ruined the world, and I’m so here for itGames should think bigger when making magic feel dangerous
Games should think bigger when making magic feel dangerous
Too many spells in games are just variations on the old reliable fireball. Wizard sends projectile towards target. Target dies. Perhaps they deviate a little in how quickly they die, or how large the area of effect is. Maybe instead of a fireball it’s a thunderbolt, or a poisonous gas, or a beam of light. Pish, I say. Pish! Where’s therealmagic? Where are the cataclysmic spells that take days or weeks of preparation, and then change the world with a single fateful ritual?
These games could learn something fromThe Last Spell, a roguelite turn-based tactics game about defending your village each night from hordes of mutant beasts that emerge from the purple fog surrounding the entire world. Whenever I start a new game in The Last Spell, I always rewatch the excellent opening sequence, which succinctly sets a harrowing scene of magic pushed further than we’re used to seeing in most fiction in general, let alone games.
The Last Spell - Release Window and Consoles AnnouncementWatch on YouTube
The Last Spell - Release Window and Consoles Announcement
Thus the stage is set for a very stylish roguelite strategy game, partThey Are Billions, partFinal Fantasy Tactics, where the player must defend their village from escalating mutant assaults each night, holding them off long enough for the mages in the village to complete the last spell and wipe magic from the world. Cor, how brilliant is that for a setup?
Things can very quickly spiral out of control when attempting to defend your village from the ever-mounting mutant assault. It’s a neat little reflection of the relentless escalation of magical warfare in the game’s lore.
It’s a simple idea really. Nuclear apocalypse, but magic instead of science. I guess if you wanted, you could argue that the city-destroying spell in The Last Spell is still essentially a fireball - just a really, really big one. And I should clarify, before anyone gets too excited - the magic that your heroes have access to when it comes to actually defending your village is far more ordinary. No giant nukes for you, I’m afraid.
Still, The Last Spell goes big on exploring the far-reaching, deadly consequences of magic in a fantasy world, and ends up with a setting that’s far more captivating to me than almost any other magic-filled video game world I can recall. I understand why it’s difficult to introduce world-changing spells into the actual gameplay - what a nightmare for difficulty balancing that would be - but there’s nothing stopping other games from exploring a darker, more powerful, more uncontrollable version of the vanilla magic we’re all so used to.
The player doesn’t get access to nuke-magic, only normal magic. Still, the game goes further than most in making magic seem horrifyingly dangerous.
