Magic: The Gathering has had a change of heart(hstone).
Wizards of the Coast today announced the release of Magic Duels: Origins today for iPad and iPhone. It’ll come out on Xbox One and PC in July, with a PlayStation 4 version coming later in the year. The card game has had digital versions before, but this is the first one to come out for smartphones. Also, past releases were not free-to-play, while Magic Duels is. Previously, video game versions of Magic: The Gathering were under the Duels of the Planeswalkers brand. They had yearly releases and focused more on premade decks with not much of an emphasis on building your own.
That strategy seemed to work for a bit, but then Blizzard made its own digital card game in 2014, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, which was free-to-play and centered around deck-building. It originally came out on PC, but tablet and smartphone versions soon followed. More than 30 million people have played Hearthstone as of May.
Wizards of the Coast no doubt wants to emulate that success with a digital card game of its own. Magic Duels. It’ll allows players to battle others online or computer A.I., and it also has tutorials that teaches new players the game. You can unlock hundreds of new cards, including some from a Magic: The Gathering expansion, Origins, that isn’t physically available yet. You can digital boost packs with in-game coins, but you can also spend real money to buy coins.