Arrowhead Game Studios was established in 2008 and Magicka was their first game. Shortly after ending their work on Magicka with the Grimnir's Laboratory DLC in October 2012 they continued with The Showdown Effect. Their latest game is Helldivers for PSN.

Pieces Interactive exists since 2006. So far they've released 7 games on different platforms.
Their work on the Magicka franchise includes 9 DLCs for Magicka, the last one being Dungeons
and Gargoyles in October 2013, and of course Magicka 2 which is their sixth game.

Ludosity was founded in 2008 and so far the studio has developed over 14 games for both the PC and various mobile platforms.

Paradox North was established in early 2013 and consisted of a mix of veterans from major AAA-studios and junior talents. Wizard Wars was North's first game. The team was disbanded after the development on Wizard Wars had been stopped, but the people are still working for Paradox Interactive.

Together with Paradox North, Paradox Arctic did the finalising touch on Magicka 2 before the release. Currently Paradox Arctic is the studio that's currently working on Magicka 2. All updates so far were made by Paradox Arctic.

Wizard Wars used to require a Paradox account at all times. With the community servers you don't need one. Multiplayer in MWotST and Magicka 2 requires an account as well. This account is also used on Paradox Interactive's forums. It might be used for other games in the future as well.

Magicka > Magicka 2 >> Wizard Wars > Wizards of the Square Tablet

1) The Ninth Element (novel book)
2) Wizards of the Square Tablet
3) Magicka adventure
4) Magicka DLC: The Stars are Left
5) Magicka DLC: The Other Side of the Coin
6) Magicka DLC: Dungeons and Daemons
7) Magicka DLC: Dungeons and Gargoyles
8) Wizard Wars
9) Magicka 2

For the best experience I recommend playing the original Magicka and its DLCs first, then MWotST, then Wizard Wars and Magicka 2 last.
The parts aren't closely linked with each other though, so it doesn't really matter what you play first.

Please do check out the sources and links section!

　

　
http://psteamproxy.yuanyoumao.com/app/42910
The original Magicka, often referred to as "M1" or "original Magicka", was initially developed by Arrowhead Game Studios and released on 11 January 2011.
With over 2.8 million copies sold on Steam Magicka is the most succesful game in the franchise and one of Paradox Interactive's best selling games.

Without DLCs there is one adventure with 12 levels which new players usually complete in about 10 hours. Beside the adventure there are 7 challenge levels and 6 PvP maps.
If you play through everything (in the base game) you can easily spend 40 hours on this game.

Modding is possible to a moderate extent. For example you can script your own challenges and PvP maps easily. All you need is a text editor and a bit of XML (similar to HTML) knowledge. This can give you dozens of hours of enjoyment, especially if you enjoy the spell system! Check out the Magicka forum for details.

There are 22 paid DLCs and one free DLC available for Magicka. Together they offer 5 adventures, 10 challenges and 5 PvP maps, 21 robes and various weapons and staffs.

You have 8 elements (10 if you count Steam and Ice) and 4 cast types which you can freely combine.
There are over 1100 possible element combinations and even more spells. However, there are only about 50 useful spells of which ~20 are clearly better than the rest.
It can be challenging for new players, but once you've got the muscle memory and know the good spells you can pretty much become invincible.

On average, there are about 270 people playing the game during the peak time (Central European evening). Unfortunately most people play only with their friends, and Magicka has buggy "matchmaking", so if you are looking for a specific game mode, you will probably have to wait a while to find it. However, if you don't care what game mode you want to play, you will quickly find a game. Most people play adventure; challenge levels can be found occasionally; barely anyone plays PvP.

If you've done some research on Magicka's performance, you might have got the impression that you shouldn't touch the game because it's a buggy, unplayable mess. This is only partially true.
Some people experience a lot of bugs, crashes and frequent disconnects from multiplayer sessions, but many others barely ever experience anything of that. This also heavily depends on ones frame rate and ping.

If you happen to be one of the unlucky people who get the full load of bugs, remember that you can simply get your money back by requesting a refund. There's a demo available also.



　

　 http://psteamproxy.yuanyoumao.com/app/247580/
Wizards of the Square Tablet was originally released on iOS and later ported to Android and then PC.
On Steam it was released on the 31st October, 2013.
It is the least known game in the franchise and also the shortest and most different one.

Like most mobile games MWotST has rather short levels of which most can be completed in under 5 minutes. There is also a challenge mode where you have to survive as many waves of monsters as you can.
The adventure can be completed in under 10 hours, but if you want all the achievements and play all the challenge levels, you will likely spend more time than that.
There are 26 staffs, 8 robes, 8 familiars and 16 magicks.

You may notice that you can purchase coins with real money ingame. These micro transactions are, however, completely unnecessary as all items are already unlocked. Plus, you get a lot of coins from doing levels. So even if the items would have to be unlocked first you wouldn't have to buy coins.

It's possible to mod the game using a Unity Asset Viewer. (Thanks, Trapfly) Details about modding will be added when available.

The gameplay in MWotsT is very different from the other Magickas.
The first thing you will notice is that the camera angle has changed from a top down view to a sidescroll view. It feels a little like Castle Crashers.

There are only 7 elements: Arcane has been removed and Life can both heal and damage. Combining Life with other elements basically corrupts it. For example a WWWW beam heals but WWAF damages.

You can only use 4 elements per spell, and Ice and Steam are not merged elements anymore. This means you can't combine Lightning with these two elements. Possible Ice and Steam spells would be QRRR, QRWD, QFWF, QFQF.

You can only force-cast and self-cast. There is no area-casting or weapon enchanting.
Move, force-cast and cast magicks are all on LMB which can take some time getting used to. To selfcast you can either press MMB or leftclick your wizard.

I have never tried cross-platforum multiplayer but multiplayer on PC does work.
If you want to play this game together with someone, you should have some friends to play it with because pretty much nobody plays it. Also, multiplayer requires a Paradox account.



　

　
http://psteamproxy.yuanyoumao.com/app/202090
http://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/app/202090/discussions/

Wizard Wars was a free to play spin-off focused on multiplayer PvP (there was no PvE mode and no single player). There were ingame transactions, however, the game was definitely not pay to win nor were you in any way forced to buy anything.

It was developed by Paradox North, a newly founded Paradox Interactive development studio, and officially released on 27 May 2014. People who signed up for the pre alpha could already start playing in October 2013 though.

There were 4 modes and a total of 12 maps. There was also a training mode with one map.

You started off with one robe, one staff, one weapon and some magick scrolls. With gold and mastery tokens you could unlock more items and magicks. There were also a few item packs available for real money.
Including the cash items there were 46 robes, 63 weapons, 51 staffs, 44 trinkets, 41 rings and 15 familiars which you could unlock.

There was no level cap. You could play for as long as you like. I personally have played for "only" 900 hours, but I know quite a few people who have spent over 1500 hours on Wizard Wars.

The elements per spell had been reduced to 3, and you couldn't combine water with cold/fire in order to make ice/steam anymore (just like in MWotST) to match the fast pace of the game and to eliminate the already insignifcant advantage macros give. As a result there were only 120 possible element combinations, but the useful to useless spell ratio was much better.

There were only 2 ways to cast spells: Force-cast and the context sensitive self/area-cast.
Would a spell harm you if selfcasted, it automatically resulted in an area-cast. For example !ASE resulted in a protection ward while !SFS resulted in a damaging area nova.

There were many more things that could be listed here. Too many. If you are interested in the game (which you should be) I suggest you either just try it out or browse the guides on Steam.

PvP in the original Magicka is about brute force, about who can cast spells quicker. There are no "going defensive to heal up" phases. Instead there are "clash and rest" phases. You prepare wards and enchants, then go all out to destroy your opponent while warding against his spells and once you are out of juice you take a step back and rest. The rest phases are very short usually while the clash phases can either be very short or very long.

Wizard Wars had a different meta. Not worse, just different. It had more of that rock paper scissors feeling, and anticipating your opponent's next move was much more important than in M1.
The balance between defense and offense was very delicate. Watching your own health was crucial because tunnel vision could get you killed very quickly. The ability to pressure someone overwhelmingly was very useful, as it limited most enemies to passive defending.

If you are a gamer who wants to avoid games in which players can get an advantage by spending money or doing questionable things, I can reassure you that M:WW doesn't have anything of that.

There was no cash currency, but it was possible to buy crowns and boosters. These did not give you any advantage, they only reduced the grinding time which wasn't that long.
Every item that boosted one affinity also reduced its opposite. For example, +fire boosted your fire damage and fire resistance, but in return made you weaker to death damage and reduced your resistance to it. Item packs bought with money and the crafted items followed the same principle.

Most if not all macro programs were blocked by the Easy Anti Cheat program and even if there was a program that worked, macros didn't give any notable advantage.
Macro users limited themselves to using only a handful of the same spells. Completely new players might get a slight advantage, but they'd always be stuck on that skill level if they kept relying on macros. In M:WW it was crucial to be able to adapt to your opponents and that's only possible if you could cast spells on the fly. (see muscle memory)

The player base had shrinked a lot near the end of the game's lifespan which resulted in relatively long queue times, if you weren't playing during the peak time, and rather goofy matchmaking from time to time. Despite these issues MWW was still fun game and, like the other Magicka games, best with "friends" (or against them).



　

This section is a work in progress. Parts of it may not be accurate. Thanks to Trapfly for writing this so far. We're looking for contributors.

In late March of 2013, "Magicka: Wizard Wars" was announced by Paradox Interactive. During July of the same year, a gameplay trailer was released, followed by the creation of an official website where future players could sign up for alpha testing of the game. Pre-alpha testing under a strict NDA occurred until October, which was when the alpha officially launched on Steam as part of the "Early Access" program. Codes were distributed to anyone who applied on the website, but those who missed out on this opportunity or simply wanted to support development could purchase a Founder's Pack on the Steam Store.

Wizard Wars only contained a limited tutorial and one gamemode, "Wizard Warfare", at this point in time. It took a few minutes to enter a match, and the playerbase would be considered slim by most peoples' standards. Nearly every week an update would be released, ranging from minor bug fixes to the release of new items in the shop (all of which could be purchased for ingame currency at the time). During November, the amount of players increased to double, then triple what it was in October. Around Christmas time, the peak amount of alpha players had been achieved. This would generally be considered the first golden-age of M:WW, and the emergence of many community clans, groups, and tournaments would follow.

By February of 2014, four-player, round robin style duels were implemented into the game, and Wizard Warfare was temporarily disabled in order to focus testing efforts on the new mode. Having received adequate feedback and results, Wizard Warfare returned on February 18th, accompanied by a training mode where wizards could hone their spellcasting skills in peace.
Despite the updates to the matchmaker and the introduction of more equipment, such as magical rings, over half of the playerbase disappeared following the removal of duel mode.

In April, the amount of players in Wizard Wars began to skyrocket. Unfortunately, this would be the zenith for the rest of the game's lifetime, the second golden-age that lasted until July. After eight months of alpha, open beta testing for Wizard Wars began on May 27th, 2014. Following July of 2015, the playerbase was reduced to a shell of its past self until the game left Early Access in late May of 2015. This event managed to raise the amount of players to half of what it was in April, but numerous issues lowered it into an abyss of low numbers inconceivable even during alpha. Finally, on July 27th, 2016, the servers closed forever (nearly a week after the planned date of the shutdown).

Thanks to community efforts it's possible to play the game again.



Currently there are only US based servers hosted by project collaborators.

In order to play on the community servers you have to install a client patch. The whole process is fairly easy and requires only about 5 minutes. The following guide will help you:
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1801741533
Enjoy.

　
http://psteamproxy.yuanyoumao.com/app/238370
Released on 26 May 2015 Magicka 2 is the latest game in the franchise.
Quite frankly, the release version was an underdeveloped mess. For example you couldn't even rebind your keys. However, there have been a bunch of patches already and many of the initial issues have been fixed. Many negative reviews are actually outdated and can be disregarded.


In the base game there is one adventure with 9 levels which can be completed in about 10 hours,
7 challenges and 9 trials*. If you play through everything and use the artifact system you can easily get at least 40 hours out of this game. There is no PvP mode though.

So far the DLCs offer 3 challenges, 3 stand-alone boss fights, 4 scenarios and 6 new robe sets.

Trials are adventure themed challenges, but have different goals than the normal challenges.
For example, defeat the boss from adventure level 9 as quickly as possible.

All of these modes can be played alone or with up to 3 friends.

The artifacts are one of Magicka 2's major selling points. Completing levels (any game mode) unlocks artifacts of which 6 can be used at a time to customise the gameplay, thus adding, theoretically, almost infinite replay value.
However, the gameplay changes are actually rather trivial. For example, you can change the effectiveness of elements, friendly fire damage, health of players and NPCs. They are a great addition, but none of them are truly game changing.

Completing levels does not only award you artifacts, you also get magicks, items (weapons, staffs, robes) and robe skins which you can use to customise your wizard.
In the original Magicka you had robes with fixed default equipment. You could pick up items but would drop them upon death.
In Magicka 2 you can equip your character with persistent items (you'll have to unlock them first though). If you die you still drop picked up items, but you'll have them stored in your inventory. There are, however, a few items which cannot be unlocked permanently.

The gameplay, possible spells and spell balance, etc. will be elaborated in the next section.

The multiplayer aspect of the game is much improved compared to M1. There are fewer bugs and connection problems. You can hot-join games now which means that you can join games that are already in progress. Local coop is also available. You can also mix local coop with online multiplayer.

Unfortunately the player base is very small due to the bumpy release, and the negative reviews keep it small. So if you want to play this game together with someone (singleplayer is fun too), you should ask your friends or visit the forums and find people there.
The sale in late January 2017 increased the player base significantly. Finding people to play with shouldn't be a problem anymore now.

Players can give feedback on the current state of spell balance. For example spell X is too strong, but spell Y too weak. This version of Magicka 2 is updated more frequently than the main game. It's like a sandbox used to test changes before the main game is patched.
However, there haven't been any updates in quite a while, so I'm not sure, whether the Balance Beta is still being used or if there is still an active development studio working on the game at all.



　

　

This section is work in progress!

Unfortunately I have been very busy with work and school recently, so I've not been able to play Magicka 2 very much. I will update this section when I have more information and more time!

If you are interested in helping (editing the guide), please write a comment!

Recently added entries are marked with *►

The advanced spellcasting notation will be used in this section. Details here.
! = self-cast
@ = area-cast
~ = weapon enchant or weapon swing

► Just like in Wizard Wars both Steam and Ice used to be seperate elements making QFA/QRA impossible and severely reducing the amount of possible element combinations.

► Another Wizard Wars mechanic: Lightning used to have a higher priority than arcane.
You could, of course, still combine them but AS resulted in a lightning type spell rather than a beam type.

...




► You can use up to 5 elements per spell.

► Ice (QR) and steam (QF) are single elements and can be combined with lightning. Everyone's beloved QFASx beams and QREASx walls are possible.

...



► You can cast certain spell types while walking.

► Self healing (!W) is a channelling spell. This means you have to hold down the selfcast button.

► Lightning storms block lightning.

...



► Wards:
!EF = 25% resistance; does not protect against the burning status; it's basically useless
!EFF = 50% resistance; protects against the burning status; you cannot dry or unchill yourself with F
!EFFF = makes you immune to fire and burning; prevents using fire to remove status effects
!EFFFF = makes you absorb the damage; also prevents using fire to remove status effects

!EQQ keeps you dry, !ERR protects against chill, !EAA protects against ministuns caused by lightning. The pushback resistance of !ED(DDD) scales with the amount of D's.

► Combining arcane (S) with water (Q) results in the new poison element. Just like ice and steam it only takes up one element slot in the queue and can be combined with lightning.

► Ice shards (QR) are like a machine gun now. Instead of firing multiple ice shards at once you rapidly shoot single ice shards.

► DQR which used to be a rock with ice spikes is now a a very fast stream of ice shards.

► As already mentionied, lightning has lower priority than arcane and life. You can do lightning beams and novas.
However, if you combine them with shield, lightning will have higher priority than those two elements, resulting in lightning walls infused with S/W instead of mines.

► Magicks can be casted using the hotkeys (1-4) and/or the appropriate element combination (elements + space bar).
Magicks also have cooldowns. You can reduce the cooldowns a little by using both casting methods.

...
　

• Magicka modding website[magickamods.tllps.com]
  
  
• Magickapedia[magicka.gamepedia.com]
  
  
• Player base charts[steamcharts.com]
  
  
• Paradox Interactive forums[forum.paradoxplaza.com]
  
  
• Magicka modding
  
  
• Magicka DLCs developed by: Arrowhead Game Studios, Pieces Interactive
  
  
• Magicka on Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org]
  
  
• Developer websites: Arrowhead[arrowheadgamestudios.com], Pieces Interactive[piecesinteractive.se], Ludosity[ludosity.com], Paradox North[www.paradoxplaza.com], Paradox Arctic[career.paradoxplaza.com]
  
  
• Create and manage your Paradox account here: accounts.paradoxplaza.com
  
  
• What's the difference between publishers and developers? link here[www.alteredgamer.com]
  
  
• LFG-thread for Magicka, LFG-thread for Magicka 2