Dodging a rival wizard’s torrent of fire. Picking up the Cursed Relic that turns the tide against that accursed golem. Fleeting victory! Embarrassing, pit-based defeat.

When a would-be Wizard of Legend bets their life to claim the Chalice of Immortality, the only thing certain is uncertainty. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be prepared for the chaos that awaits in developer Dead Mage’s upcoming action-packed rogue-lite dungeon crawler.

Today, let’s delve into what a typical solo trial might look like for the brave, foolish, magical contenders of Wizard of Legend 2…

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2193540/Wizard_of_Legend_2/


In an era long before the events of the original Wizard of Legend, a rare solar eclipse heralds the return of one of Lanova’s most ancient traditions: the legendary Trials, in which wizards from across the realm vie for their shot at life everlasting.

Only one wizard at a time can live with this immortal boon, an honor that currently belongs to a decadent, reclusive master of the arcane arts called Hieronymus. Together with his Wizard Council—the wise and disciplined Madam Moulin, the gravity-tending geomancer Nazradin, and the powerful and headstrong Serjik—they will test these ambitious young challengers to the Chalice, and find out whether any of them are worthy of becoming a legend. They certainly have their doubts.


Each trial begins with you choosing 1 of 3 random wizards to take on the upcoming trial from beginning to end. Each contender has a particular penchant or power granted by their starting Relic, such as a watery shield that deflects projectiles, or an affinity for Dragon Arcana. Maybe you’ll choose a favorite you’re familiar with. Maybe you’ll choose something outside your comfort zone. Just don’t get too attached to your sorcerous new friend.

Before each wizard ventures into the Floating Lands (the gauntlet where Hieronymus hosts the Trials), you’ll first have a chance to explore the grand grounds of Van Eyckrous mansion, a hub of social and story activity where you’ll make some critical decisions for your run.

Here, you might chat with fellow wizard NPCs to hear about their brilliant (ahem) combat plans, engage Serjik or Hieronymus for sage advice or savage mockery, or strike up a conversation about the meaning of existence with some enchanted cleaning supplies. In this liminal space, the story advances between trials, as you learn more about the personalities, histories, secrets, and motivations that drive Wizard of Legend 2’s eccentric arcane assemblage.

Van Eyckrous mansion also plays host to a mystical Apparatus tended to by a young woman named Aletheia, Madam Moulin’s niece, conscripted to a life of monotonous maintenance due to her lack of magical talent. Wise wizards would do well to get on Aletheia’s good side, because the Apparatus could hold the key to ultimate success.

When a wizard feeds Chaos Gems into this machine, it grants permanent upgrades to the player—for example, making it so passing through portals rejuvenates health, or increasing the odds of discovering enhancements during your trials. These upgrades put the “-lite” in this rogue-lite, as they persist between each run; meaning when your current wizard falls in combat, the next wizards in line will be able to benefit from these upgrades, too.


Fire. Earth. Water. Air. Lightning. Chaos. Arcana are the source of every wizard’s power. The potential combinations are infinitely tantalizing. The opportunities for experimentation are as vast as the void. Before each trial begins, your wizard will select a loadout of three starting Arcana to use on their run, choosing from any of the six magical schools.

To start, you’ll pick one Basic Arcana (a workhorse cantrip you can cast as often as you like), one Signature Arcana (a more powerful ability; it also charges up a bar as you use it, eventually unleashing a mega-destructive ultimate form), and one Standard Arcana (a potent spell with a longer cooldown).

If you want all area-of-effect Fire Arcana, go for it. If you see what happens when you mix Water and Lighting, it’s your funeral. Want to try a trio of melee Arcana? Just the longest-range spells you can find? Want to try immortalizing your build as a meme? It’s up to you…just keep in mind that you’ll have opportunities to add two more Arcana to your arsenal during your trial, which could completely change your tactics and survival odds. A good wizard knows how to improvise.


Once you’ve selected your initial Arcana loadout, it’s time to pass through the portal into the Floating Lands to see what gleeful carnage the council has concocted to test you. Every wizard begins their trial in the same place—an enchanted, but not exactly enchanting, jungle—but individual paths soon diverge, as chambers, portals, monsters, and challenging events are reconfigured between each run according to the council’s whims and Nazradin’s geomantic talents.

What might a wizard encounter, you wonder? Here’s just a sample of the Floating Lands’ myriad challenges and boons…

• A chamber full of monstrous flora and fauna that must be defeated in order to bring down a magical barrier.
  
• The mysterious Nox, an eerily familiar merchant who’ll offer you a choice of powerful, trial-changing, probably cursed Relics to use on your run.
  
• A raucous, gladiatorial clash with wizard council member Serjik…and considering your health after the contest, it’s a bit unclear whether he’s helping you or hindering you.
  
• A rival NPC wizard specializing in Earth magic—defeat her, and perhaps she’ll drop one of her own Arcana to add to your arsenal for the remainder of your run.
  
• An enchanted chest that tries to kill you. Oooh, that’s bad. But there’s an Arcana held within. That’s good! The Arcana is a terrible mismatch for your current loadout. That’s bad. But you can transmute the Arcana into gold to purchase a useful Relic later on. That’s good! The Relic is also cursed. That’s…bad? (You can go now.)

At the end of each realm of the Floating Lands, every wizard must face off against its powerful boss, drawing upon all of their Arcana skill, dodging prowess, and dwindling health pool to advance to the next realm. Each realm has its own new environment, challenges, monsters, and nefarious ways to ruin a wizard’s day.

But one wizard’s demise is the next wizard’s opportunity! And when you die, the cycle begins anew. Only this time, your skill has increased. You can dodge that golem’s attack with 96.3% proficiency. You’ve amassed more Chaos Gems to feed to Aletheia’s Apparatus, giving you an edge that your unlucky predecessor didn’t have. And you’ve got an awesome idea for a frost-themed build inspired by that blue wizard bastard who turned you into a block of ice….

Perhaps this time you’ll become…the Wizard of Legend 2!

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Wizard of Legend 2 is currently in development, and Dead Mage is constantly iterating, testing, and gathering feedback—the gameplay and features discussed here are subject to change, and Dead Mage would love to hear what you think.

For more articles and posts like these and to be part of the conversation, follow Wizard of Legend 2 on X, Facebook[www.facebook.com], and Instagram[www.instagram.com], and join the community on Discord[discord.gg]!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2193540/Wizard_of_Legend_2/

It’s official! Earlier this week, we released our latest trailer for Wizard of Legend 2 during the iii-Initiative Showcase, and we’re so excited to finally be sharing more about the game with you after revealing it way back in May of last year. We felt that this would be a great time to kick off a dev log series leading up to launch, so that everyone in the community can learn more about what we’re conjuring up behind the scenes, and gain some insights from the development team here at Dead Mage.

As a team, we quickly fell in love with the fast-paced combat of the first game. We were eager to take on the challenge of bringing this sequel to life, while also ensuring Wizard of Legend’s trademark fluidity remains intact. We knew the responsive controls and quick movement that players have become so familiar with would be of the utmost importance. This motivated the team to find the perfect balance between maintaining and enhancing the gameplay, variety of Arcana, and controls for Wizard of Legend 2.

One of the first challenges we encountered was figuring out how to keep things fast, yet under control, considering the vast variety of Arcana available to players. This hurdle was initially a tough one for the team, and Senior Game Designer Javid Najibzadeh shared a few of his thoughts on how we approached it:

“We realized that we did need to make the animations much more snappy, making the anticipation animations much shorter - down to even a couple of frames at some points. The entire process of casting an Arcana needed to be faster in order to match the first game’s pace.”

Speaking of Arcana, we’ve put in extra time and effort to make sure every spell has a unique feel, to make the gameplay more immersive. To do this, we ensured each one of the over 70 different Arcana have distinct abilities, controls, and nuances that will affect gameplay. This is still an ongoing process that we will continue to revise and work on as the game’s development progresses toward launch.

One interesting decision we’ve made was to implement a skill that lets players double dash, but only over pits. Javid explains,

“We thought it might be a good idea to give players an extra chance of avoiding pits as it sometimes was too grim to fall into pits when you wanted to avoid being hit… At some point we removed it and every tester went almost mad.”
This led to us reworking the skill to become a permanent progression upgrade, which ended up getting a positive response during our internal playtests.

However, after further playtesting, we felt the cooldown and other restrictions of dash Arcana made them less predictable, which affected the game’s pacing in a negative way. Due to this, we decided to replace dash Arcana with Relics that grant the same powers. If you’ve never played Wizard of Legend before, Relics are returning items in Wizard of Legend 2 that you can acquire as you progress through the Trials. These items will alter and enhance your abilities, but be careful what you decide to pick up! Some Relics may carry negative effects in addition to their benefits.

These Relics will appeal to players who loved the dash Arcana from the first game while opening up opportunities for interesting builds.

We are excited to reveal even more about Wizard of Legend 2 in the coming weeks, and we’re grateful for all of you who have been sharing your own excitement and interest with us on social media, as well as in our Discord server[discord.gg]. So brace yourselves and get ready to engage in fast-paced combat with unique Arcana, encounter familiar and new NPCs, and claim the coveted title of Wizard of Legend!

We’ll see you next month, where we’ll be taking a closer look at Arcana design! If there are topics you’d like to see us explore in future dev logs, be sure to let us know by sharing your suggestions with us in Discord.