Arrowhead Game Studios and Paradox yesterday released Magicka, a satirical action-adventure fantasy. Unfortunately, reports are flooding message boards that the game has a poor level of quality in it's launch state, and will require significant patching to bring the title to a playable standard. Read on for details of the issues and the developer's response.
Users have started to list bugs on Steam's forum , noting that elements of the tutorial don't load, leaving players unclear how to progress, that strange characters appear in on-screen text, and that the online feature is severely hampered by server connection issues and crashes. Some NPC characters appear to behave oddly , the middle-mouse button refuses to work (meaning the self-cast magic function is inaccessible), and the game crashes when players pick up certain items in the Challenge mode. Some users have also reported that their menus are replaced with a white image , rendering them incapable of clicking anything.
Alongside these glitches, the game suffers from severe performance issues with players reporting they are experiencing slow-down and stuttering on even the most high-powered machines.
A Paradox representative has posted on the Steam message board that "our developers are aware of the crashes people are experiencing and we will release a patch as soon as we can. We apologize for any inconvenience and thanks for the support." They seem to be true to their word too, since the game's first patch is available on Steam now which addresses many of the issues.
Strategy Informer contacted Paradox, who pledged that they would release patches every 24 hours for two weeks, so long as issues continued to arise.
Whilst we can commend the dedication of Paradox to release patches as fast as they are, it's unacceptable to launch a game in a condition that makes it as problematic to play as Magicka is. Players might want to hold off purchasing Magicka until the game has been patched to an acceptable level of playability. We'll keep you updated.
