The Wizards is a single-player spellcasting combat game from Carbon Studio, the makers of Alice VR. The game is set to launch in Early Access on Steam for the Vive and Rift this Friday, July 28th. A new Early Access launch trailer shows what’s in store for aspiring spellcasters.
The Wizards is a VR spellcasting game where players will use their VR controllers to cast fireballs, lightning, magical shields, and more, to defeat a range of enemies in a classic medieval fantasy setting. Though what we’ve seen so far has us worried the game could fall too far into the monotonous ‘wave shooter’ camp, developer Carbon Studio says The Wizards built around a “story mode featuring time travel and heroic battles,” and “element-based spell trees to learn and develop,” which gives us some hope that it will be more substantive than simply dispatching wave after wave of goblins and demons.
Built on Unreal Engine 4, the game’s visuals stand out, while the art direction and gameplay revealed thus far remind us heavily of The Unspoken (2016), a PVP spellcasting combat game from Insomniac Games.
Carbon Studio’s previous game, Alice VR (2016), wasn’t particularly well received. The studio explains why, this time around, they’re taking The Wizards to Early Access:
We’ve learnt that when developing VR games, you have to gather feedback from the players as soon as possible. We want to make sure that all the solutions and features we provide are fun to play, add to the immersion and meet the players’ expectations. We’re also open to players’ ideas and suggestions for future content updates.
Carbon Studio expects The Wizards to be in Early Access for 5 – 6 months, with a full release of the game to follow, including new regions, an “endless” arcade mode, more powerfull spell upgrades in the form of “Master Enhancements”, and new “Fate Cards” that modify the game experience. “We also want to implement content based on players’ ideas, be it new spells, new enemies, new challenges etc,” the studio writes on the game’s Steam page.