Watch: Six Minutes of ‘Mage’s Tale’ Gameplay Shows Real Promise

By
Dominic Brennan
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Mage’s Tale is a VR Action RPG set in the world of classic fantasy RPG The Bard’s Tale. It is being shown at GDC 2017 for the first time on Oculus Rift and Touch and here’s six minutes of gameplay footage to whet your appetite for the title.

As one of six new titles announced at GDC for Oculus platforms, Mage’s Tale is built from the ground up for Oculus Touch. The Action RPG is developed by inXile Entertainment, set in the world of The Bard’s Tale, a classic RPG series. Delving through dungeons, solving puzzles and mastering the arcane arts sounds like a good time; the game promises to deliver 10 hours of gameplay through hand-crafted dungeons littered with secrets. A crafting system that lets you design hundreds of variations of four base spells, all of which are cast with a physical hand motion. While a release date hasn’t been set, inXile plan to launch on Touch first, but will bring the game to other platforms in the future. The game is shaping up well too, as you can see from this 6 minutes of gameplay footage.

Road to VR‘s Ben Lang also spoke to inXile’s David Rogers this week at GDC to find out more about the design ethos behind the game.

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Dominic Brennan
The trial version of Microsoft’s Monster Truck Madness probably had something to do with it. And certainly the original Super Mario Kart and Gran Turismo. A car nut from an early age, Dominic was always drawn to racing games above all other genres. Now a seasoned driving simulation enthusiast, and former editor of Sim Racer magazine, Dominic has followed virtual reality developments with keen interest, as cockpit-based simulation is a perfect match for the technology. Conditions could hardly be more ideal, a scientist once said. Writing about simulators lead him to Road to VR, whose broad coverage of the industry revealed the bigger picture and limitless potential of the medium. Passionate about technology and a lifelong PC gamer, Dominic suffers from the ‘tweak for days’ PC gaming condition, where he plays the same section over and over at every possible combination of visual settings to find the right balance between fidelity and performance. Based within The Fens of Lincolnshire (it’s very flat), Dominic can sometimes be found marvelling at the real world’s ‘draw distance’, wishing virtual technologies would catch up.
  • Critique

    Looks polish but doesn’t look compelling. The interactions seem very limited. Objects floating to your hand without having to actually pick them up. No need to turn around as you can always teleport backward. No need to move around since there’s no need to dodge.

    Everything feels… “flat”. Is this actually a VR game?

    • Ian Shook

      I sort of agree. I think this game seems like it would work fine as a 2D game? Full disclosure though, I haven’t seen a single game that looks interesting yet for Rift. That’s probably just me though.

    • Hacker4748

      Well, I guess it’s not roomscale?

  • Kristofer

    So does every new game now have to include the annoying guide with an English accent holding our hands and boosting our ego through constant patronization? The game looks well designed but it’s lacking depth. If we’re searching for the killer VR app we’re going to have to dig deeper.

  • Michael Davidson

    I truly hope they add the locomotion option found within Trickster VR instead of just teleportation. I am truly sick of teleportation.

    • Reels Rihard

      Teleportation only, is ruining some Vr games. It’s like a post, I saw on reddit. The poster said, it’s like giving glasses to everyone because SOME people are near sighted. Options please.

  • burzum

    Add “real” locomotion and I might buy it…

  • Vaxovillion

    Looks good to me, I’ve been craving some dungeon crawling VR experiences.