Spellsworn (PC) Preview

For gamers that came of age during the early 2000s, there is a good chance they might have played a game like Spellsworn either on a Warcraft III or StarCraft custom game. This is an 'arena battler' type affair, where each player controls a single mage in a small arena in which they must try to kill the other players.

The action all starts the same, in that everyone has a similar mage and money to buy a set of spells. All the spells available to all players are the same, so it deeply matters what selection someone goes with. These all range from typical fireballs or ice bolts, to AoE spells, like lightning or poison, to knockback, to teleport, to speed boosts.

The mages move slower than feels natural, but it helps aiming the spells. The feeling of crawling around stills feels awkward, though, as spells can be seen coming but still not get out of the way. Mostly the action is frantic, though, as spells from other people are constantly going off in all directions. There are no magic points, rather each skill has a cooldown so there is a constant need to rotate skills and keep an eye on what is happening.

The basics are easy enough to explain but there is a pretty high learning curve as there is a lot of synergy between spells that can come off as incredibly cheap when hit with the right combo. The real life or death of Spellsworn is going to be how many players are active on it. The game originally cost money but is switching to a free-to-play on its launch day, so if the team can get enough people, it could be a fun one to check out.