When the creator of the Forgotten Realms is writing your story, it’s probably fair to say that your third-person action-adventure stands out from the crowd. This is the case for the just revealed Mages Of Mystralia (not entirely sure how Cyan Inc. will feel about the name), which apparently comes from a Montreal team made up of escapees from Ubisoft projects.

I have long thought the PC is really lacking in those lovely chunky PlayStation-style third-person games. The Ratchet & Clanks, the Jak & Daxters. This looks like something that fits neatly into that description, although with a heavy emphasis on magic. The trailer below suggests that players will be able to create their own bespoke spells:



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You are, they tell us, Zia, a young girl with magical gifts in a world where magic is banned. Off she pops on an adventure to master her magic away from the prying eyes of the authorities, finds a bunch of strange runes, and then learns she can combine them to create new spells. Which rather suggests that, unless there a huge number of these runes, those self-created spells aren’t that unique. But we shall see.

Ed Greenwood, the man responsible for the Forgotten Realms, is penning the tale, which suggests that it will a) hopefully be a bit more than a “young girl matures” allegory, and b) it’ll probably have some splendidly hokum nonsense in there. And thankfully, so far at least, there’s no hint of a fundraising campaign – this might actually be a game that’s announced, then made, then released, like used to happen in the 1700s.

It looks pretty cute to me from the few snippets, and like I say, I crave this genre on my desktop. I also like that it looks just a little ARPGy too. Hopefully more information will appear soon. The release is aiming for space year 2017.