•After watching just eight minutes of Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons during Sony’s Gamescom Opening Night Live, I found myself increasingly drawn to its magic-based approach before a single sword derailed my enthusiasm.
The brief showcase revealed an impressive production that initially resembled “every Sony game released in the last ten years,” complete with familiar camera angles and a quippy NPC companion. Yet as the demonstration progressed, Warlock’s invocation-based puzzle-solving and combat won me over—levitating objects to build platforms, teleporting to swap positions with enemies, and conjuring storms to amplify electrical attacks.
“It’s rare to see a game of this scope encourage guile and cleverness from the player,” I wrote, “to set its mechanical ambitions slightly beyond timed dodges and grisly executions.”
Then came the moment that punctured my excitement: Warlock’s magical protagonist Kaatri conjured a sword. The logic seemed sound—why carry pounds of sharpened steel when you can summon one at will? Yet seeing hack-and-slash combat appear in Warlock felt like a missed opportunity.
To be clear, I have no quarrel with swords themselves. I spent years training to wield one and appreciate the considerable difficulty of depicting authentic swordplay in video games, from technical animation demands to the nuances of different fighting styles.
The real issue runs deeper than any single weapon. “What bothered me was the fact that we don’t really see games that are about being a Warlock,” I argued. “Or a wizard, or a mage, or a sorcerer, or whichever brand of berobed spell-slinger floats your boat.”
Mages appear in virtually every fantasy roleplaying game, but almost always as one option among many rather than the central focus. Purpose-built arcane games remain rare, and those that exist tend to be first-person shooters swapping guns for spells—titles like The Sorcerer’s Labyrinth, whose potential was “squandered by aching repetition,” or Enclave, which offers decent action despite frustrating writing.
One standout exception is Arrowhead’s debut title Magicka, which focuses squarely on spellcasting through its innovative spell-customisation mechanic. It captures the essence of wizardry: “being an all-powerful wizard is accidentally burning down half a city because you slightly mispronounced a spell.”
Fifteen years after Magicka’s release, few games have matched its approach—and I suggested this reveals something important about game design. Focusing on a specific experience (“What would it be like to be X?”) often produces more interesting results than trying to cater to everyone.
In fairness to developer Invoke Studios, the showcase prioritised invocations and their magical abilities remain compelling. But seeing Kaatri hack away with that blade suggested “a crutch for a developer concerned not enough people will buy into just being a magic wielder.”
I acknowledged uncertainty about my conclusion, noting I’m approaching Warlock as a video game fan rather than a D&D expert—though the editor confirmed warlocks do indeed use swords in the tabletop rules. Regardless, the reveal left me wanting “a game that goes all-in on being a physically feeble but magically almighty wizard,” perhaps even hoping Arrowhead will apply this philosophy to Magicka’s sequel.
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