Master Of The Dark Arts: Worlds Of Magic

I bought Master of Magic when I was thirteen and managed to sneak a look at the manual during the bus journey home. It was enormous, that manual, full of stats, charts, creatures...possibilities. Despite the wonky AI, Simtex's epic is still one of my favourite strategy games.

Worlds of Magic [official site] could be the closest thing to a spiritual successor. We're not starved for strong fantasy 4X games at the moment - Endless Legend was our pick of 2014's releases and Age of Wonders III is no slouch. The former is pushing the genre in unusual directions, however, and the latter has its own traditions to follow. Worlds of Magic looks to be picking up exactly where the plane-hopping expansionism of Master of Magic left off.

The game has been in available in Early Access for a while and the response hasn't been entirely enthusiastic, it's fair to say. I took a look myself when it first became available and decided to leave well alone until interface improvements and bugfixes were in place. I'll be jumping back in soon.

Nothing in the trailer convinces me that all will be sweetness and light come release on March 19th, but I live in hope. The kind of hope that seems me repeatedly dashed against rocks as I dream of lighthouses on the shore.