If Spellcasters Chronicles looks a lot like League of Legends to you, that’s because it is a lot like League of Legends. Detroit Become Human and Heavy Rain studio Quantic Dream might describe its upcoming multiplayer game as an “action strategy,” but it leans heavily on the foundation of Riot’s long-running MOBA. Polygon recently went hands-on with Spellcasters Chronicles in a digital preview on Windows PC, and those similarities, along with a few unique twists, might be enough to set it apart from the storm of other multiplayer games.
In Spellcasters Chronicles, teams of three players battle to control several lanes and points of interest. Each character has unique abilities and access to different skills you can upgrade as the round progresses and two “decks” of spells to pick between before a match starts. Skills are usually divided into offensive and defensive categories. Decks will be customizable in the final release, which is promising, since their base forms were often wildly imbalanced during my session.
After reaching a certain point in the match, every character starts charging another skill meter, one that lets them summon a titanic creature that lumbers around and causes extensive damage. Things change fast once this happens, as everyone moves to target the giant, who’s inevitably going to swing favor into the summoning team’s favor, at least until their rivals launch a counterattack. These moments were a welcome break in the standard flow of swelling forward to attack points and retreating to defend them.
Each character has two spellbooks (skill branches) that determine what abilities they can use for the upcoming match. Team coordination is definitely going to be key here so the party has what it needs to win. In the first match, for example, I played as a sorceress and chose a spell branch that specialized in support minions. I was out of luck when my teammates died (or suddenly went off somewhere else). Until they respawned (or reappeared), it was just me with some little minions who couldn’t do much beyond some tiny poofs of healing magic. My sole offensive spell goes on lengthy cooldown, so there was only a basic melee attack available and absolutely no chance of making meaningful progress alone. I fared better in the second round with a different character. The spellbook I picked included a poison attack that gained multiple charges as I leveled up, so I was never without recourse if an enemy flew my way. I also had an endless army of skeletal soldiers, though with no way to direct them, that only felt useful when my home point was under attack.
My immediate takeaway from an hour with Spellcaster Chronicles is that it’s all a bit bigger than it needs to be right now. Matches last 25 minutes, but only start feeling interesting after about 10-15 minutes. The empty space between points of interest doesn’t fill up until halfway through a match, when loot chests pop up at random. When all three teammates have creatures on the field, there’s too much going on to know who’s doing what and how well it’s working, which makes it harder to plan more effectively for the next round. Shorter matches with fewer choices that have a more meaningful effect on how things turn out would make me a lot more willing to jump back in for more.
A potentially bigger structural issue is the lack of any way to easily command or move your summons. In its current form, Spellcasters Chronicles plays like it wants to be a real-time strategy game, but without giving you the tools to make that part work smoothly. You’re encouraged to bring all your minions out at the start of a match, when you only have a few pieces of territory under your control. Most creatures move with you, but slowly and in a manner you can’t control. Others, like a mausoleum that continually spawns skeleton soldiers, are static. If I built an army of undead at the beginning, then needed a faster way to get the skeletons from the starting point to a contested lane later on, well, I couldn’t, nor could I get a more mobile team of spirit warriors to go where I wanted them to.
But this is the first time the public has been able to play Spellcasters Chronicles. Rough spots are expected, and the team even said they’re considering changing match times depending on what people think about during the beta. For now, what stands out the most to me is the environment Spellcasters Chronicles will eventually launch in. It’s a loosely structured game that doesn’t punish you harshly if you mismanage cooldowns or summon two of one thing and three of another instead of the other way around. It’s less sweaty than League of Legends and even Pokemon Unite, and the MOBA formula isn’t something we’ve seen used as a source of inspiration for multiplayer games lately. Whether that’s enough to help it avoid the fate of most recent multiplayer games is anyone’s guess, but it’s enough to keep me interested, at least.