KingsIsle Games' Wizard and Pirate 101 Plan to Make Waves Once Again | PAX 2023

mmorpg.com:

Wizard 101 is now celebrating its 15^th anniversary. Throughout the last 15 years, I’m almost ashamed to say that I had never had an inkling of desire to boot up either Wizard or Pirate101, as both of these games always seemed to skew in the direction of younger gamers. During PAX West, KingsIsle Entertainment had both titles on display, and I was intrigued by what I experienced. According to the team at KingsIsle, they are just getting started.

Ahead of PAX I snagged a demo and interview time with KingsIsle, where I meant to focus on the remarkable news that Wizard 101 was celebrating its 15^th anniversary. Things went off the rails quickly once I sat down and actually got some hands-on time with Wizard and Pirate 101. The first thing I noticed between both games was that, in many ways you could tell graphically that the games were more than 10-years old. In the universe where Unreal Engine 5 exists, some jagged polygons and simplistic textures can stand out like a sore thumb. Luckily, the character models and art style are appealing enough that there’s a lot left that can be done without a complete graphics overhaul. The cartoon aesthetic is timeless in that there’s a charm that still accentuates that the game skews to a younger crowd.

More importantly, what intrigued me most about both games were how different they were. Not just how different they are from each other, but how different they are, even compared to many of the current games on the market. For example, my time with Wizard 101 consisted of some basic questing, where I happened upon an area filled with angry faeries. Once in battle, I noticed that the combat system was turn-based and card-based. At first, I believed this to be an evolution of their initial