The Second Coming of Master of Magic

My last article for eXplorminate was back in October 2019, where I wrote about the Golden Age of 4X. That article was prompted by our announcement that game publisher Slitherine had acquired the rights to Master of Magic (MoM) from the bankrupt corpse of Atari. Well, the fruit of that announcement is finally beginning to show. eXplorminate has also just announced that MuHa Games, makers of the award-winning Thea franchise, will be developing the remake of the 1994 classic. I couldn’t be more excited!

Many 4X games have I played, but only one have I loved. And that game is MoM. So, what I want to do is address some things I’m seeing in the MoM forums and the MuHa Discord that I think are some misconceptions. I believe inflated expectations will only hurt the game, and I’d like to address some of those right now before development goes much further. Specifically, I want to address sales potential for the MoM remake, tone (sometimes referred to as “charm”), and finally, the changes MuHa is making to the game from the original design.

Additionally, I want to get this out of the way: MuHa’s MoM is early alpha. Any thoughts and critiques expressed here are entirely based on what has been released by Slitherine and MuHa along with observations I have made based on social media posts and forum discussions by the developers. What we are seeing now will not resemble the final product, so in a year this entire article may be moot.

First, The “Bad” News

Whenever I have good news and bad news for someone, I lead with the bad. That way, by the end, I’m able to make them feel better with something positive. That’s what I’m going to do here for my fellow MoM-fanatics.

To begin, I don’t think MuHa’s MoM will sell as well as some fellow fans are boasting. There are a number of reasons why. First, they are asking us to buy a game we already own. In some cases, if you’re like me, we already own two or more copies of the game (one on GoG and one on Steam). So when the remake is presented to us, the players most familiar with the title will have to make a choice: Am I willing to shell out cash for something that’s presently sitting in my games library? When I stop and think about it, that’s quite a thing to ask.

Second, and somewhat related, the target audience for this game is old. The most enfranchised players (i.e. those that actually played MoM in the 90s) are in their 40s or 50s. Some have grandkids. Generation X has become used to sacrificing personal pleasures for the sake of others. It’s easy for us to forgo a new video game in favor of taking our kid to the movies or renting the latest blockbuster on streaming. Why not take the family out to eat instead of cook, many of us might ask. Essentially, the people who were adolescents and teens in 1994 have priorities beyond gaming at this point, and so the likelihood they decline or delay the purchase of a new game is higher than young people with little to no responsibilities.

Third, Master of Magic is not a very good game by contemporary standards. Let’s list out the most common complaints about 4X games: City Spam, Micromanagement, Repetitive Combat, Perfunctory Victory Conditions, Bland Diplomacy, End-Game Slog, Snowballing, to name a few. MoM is a poster-child for all of them. It is the antithesis of something new and innovative. As a result, MuHa’s MoM is going to have an extraordinarily difficult time attracting non-nostalgic customers who have grown accustomed to games like Endless Legend and Age of Wonders: Planetfall. To some extent, these problems can be ameliorated with DLC and mods, but only to a certain degree. The core of the game will always be what it is.

Finally, while I adore Master of Magic, there are not many who do. The crowd of MoM-fanatics is quite small compared to, say, the Master of Orion community. If you want proof, go no further than the SteamCharts for MoM and MoO2. Master of Magic’s troubles with stability in the 90s greatly limited its fanbase. There’s no erasing that, so while there are some who swear by the game, there are many more that never cared about it. It’s clear that the potential customer base for MuHa MoM will be smaller than the customer base for its sister game, Wargaming’s MoO.

Observations With What We’ve Seen So Far

It’s at this point I want to warn the audience away from thinking that I’m taking a big dump on this game; I’m absolutely not. I’m simply expressing my realistic assessment of the environment and warning fellow MoM-lovers to have realistic expectations for this project.

Concerning what Slitherine/MuHa have revealed to this point, I’ve read many comments saying that the images lack “charm” or are ugly. They aren’t ugly, but I do have a couple of critiques. One, the color scheme does indeed feel wrong for this game. Check out the image of the city and UI below:

Note how the image is dominated by drab, muted hues. In fact, it’s almost monochromatic. This sort of dingy color scheme is perfect for a post-apocalyptic game like Thea: The Awakening where the denizens of the world are fighting a fraught and lonely battle to survive. The world of MoM is nothing like that though. This world is at the very height of its power. MoM is high fantasy, not a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The colors should be bold, vivid, and full of life with glowing particle effects. What we have in these images is dull and lifeless.

Moreover, Thea and MoM should have very different tones in order to distinguish their brands from one another. As MuHa expands its repertoire, I would encourage it to ensure its various franchises have their own flavor. I don’t think the developers would want to be known as a studio that can only produce a particular type of game. Each title needs room to find its own market. They’ll never be able to grow to their full potential if they’re constantly being tied to one another.

As it stands, I’m not seeing much in the initial images that would attract a younger audience to Master of Magic. I’ll go back to an earlier point about Generation X getting older. If we aren’t already, we are going to be the minority of gamers in the world. If MoM is to be a successful franchise, it needs to bring in younger players. So far, I’m not sure what would get young people excited.

As mentioned above, the color scheme is subdued, perhaps even dreary. In addition, the Wizards that have been portrayed so far are not young people themselves. They’re mostly middle-aged or older. Likewise, they aren’t very sexy. Before anyone accuses me of encouraging MuHa to objectify these characters, let me point out that sexy is not synonymous with objectification, and also let me show an example of what MuHa can do to make a sexy character:

These are the types of characters that get newer people to the genre interested and excited. Not this:

Master of Magic presents young customers with quite a hurdle to overcome. Its archaic mechanics and 27-year-old history are substantial barriers to entry. If the visuals do not grab their attention, then what will? The game is still in Alpha, so there’s plenty of time for the color palette to change.

When it comes to the more nebulous word charm, there’s nothing MuHa can really do there. Charm, as I’ve seen it used, is more like being young and stupid like we were when we first played Master of Magic. That feeling, those struggles, the sudden success after long moments of hardship cannot be recaptured. We’re older and wiser now. No studio should be expected to accomplish that. Instead, I would encourage my fellow MoM-lovers to appreciate the vision MuHa and Slitherine have expressed and judge the game based on that.

Now, The Good News

I wouldn’t blame the audience for thinking that I have a very negative take on Slitherine’s direction with its new property. However, it’s just the opposite. I strongly believe that Slitherine is absolutely making the right choice with Master of Magic.

To start, I think they may have looked at the aforementioned attempt by Wargaming to recently revive the Master of Orion property. From my perspective, and I imagine the perspective of many of my fellow 4Xers, MoO: CTS was a success. It sold a couple hundred thousand copies across all platforms and produced a beautiful and playable 4X experience. Despite that, from Wargaming’s perspective, MoO: CTS was a failure.

If one were to look for reasons why that game might have “failed,” I think there are several to be found. One, I think Wargaming had expectations that were way too high. 4X is a niche video game genre. Turn-based Space 4X is a niche of a niche. It wasn’t going to rival Stellaris, let alone Civilization. Two, and more relevant to MoM, I think the reception of the Master of Orion die-hards really hurt the reputation of the game. From reviews to forum posts, MoO: CTS was lambasted by purists for having real-time combat along with other changes that weren’t “true to the spirit of MoO.” Whatever that means.

I think the folks at Slitherine may have noticed that and wisely decided to make sure the core fanbase was taken care of first. By releasing a remake of the original with some wisely chosen quality of life improvements (such as a hex-based map, build queues for cities, etc.), those wanting an authentic 1994 Master of Magic experience made with modern hardware in mind should be satisfied. The choices MuHa has made with regards to mechanics are solid and well thought out. It’s not the 90s anymore, no matter how much we might wish it was.

Next, I think Slitherine realized they have to introduce the modern audience to MoM. It’s been 27 years since MoM launched (28 by the time nuMoM actually launches next year). That is too much time for a sequel. If a Master of Magic 2 was announced, and people unfamiliar with that title Googled up “Master of Magic 1”, the results would very likely turn them off. They’d see the old, pixelated graphics, the ever-present complaints about bugs, and the outdated tropes of 90s game design, and immediately conclude that the sequel must not be for them.

As a result, Slitherine must reintroduce the current gaming audience to MoM. There is no better way to do that than to produce a faithful remake of the original. By spending the time and money to get “MoM 1” looking like a modern game, they provide themselves a solid foundation on which to build. Even more, they chose a great developer in MuHa games with a fantastic track record of making bug-free, community-responsive games. To me, this is a textbook case of how to revive a franchise for the long haul: satisfy the enfranchised core and support the potential new customers at the same time.

In the future, when the inevitable DLC’s and eventually Master of Magic 2 are announced, there is a legitimate, modern game that interested fans can go to in order to learn the style and lore of the franchise. That circumstance is a million times more preferable than only having a mid-90’s title with a checkered history being the founder of a franchise. While MuHa’s MoM will still be a game limited by 90s design ethic, a sequel will be able to easily contrast itself with contemporary features that will excite new customers.

Closing

In the end, I don’t think Master of Magic 2022 will catch fire the way some fans think it will. The thing is, it doesn’t need to. The only thing modern MoM needs to do is to set the table for the franchise going forward. I am fully confident that MuHa Games is more than capable of doing just that. MoM 2022 is an investment in the future, and if Slitherine can avoid dumping that investment before it matures the way Wargaming dumped MoO, then I know it will pay off in the long run.

MuHa’s MoM may not be the new, innovative game you wanted. It might not be the detail-for-detail remake you desire. Nonetheless, I would encourage everyone to support this game. Just as Slitherine is investing in the future of this franchise, so can we. The payoff is not necessarily in the first game Muha produces from this partnership, but in all the games yet to come.

Troy "TC" Costisick

Troy is of the eXplorminate Old Guard, having been around since the beginning. He’s an eXplorminate reviewer, former Weekly eXchange co-host, assistant administrator, and old-school gaming enthusiast who joined the team when he was called upon to help.

Troy also has experience in developing tabletop role-playing games. He’s now working very hard on his book series, titled The Hunter’s Rose Series. His first book, “The Huntsman and the She-Wolf” can be found on Amazon and other book retailers!