Warlock: Master of the Arcane

Warlock: Master of the Arcane is an expansive strategy game that lets players take on the role of a Great Mage in the search of world conquest. Its vivid and colorful presentation and superb audio come with a streamlined focus on warmongering and expansion. It has a lot of great ideas and sprinkles original takes on the known genre throughout its game, such as quests, magical research and spells, hordes of neutral monsters, other realms, unit advancement and perk upgrades and minimal load times with optimal performance.

Still, Warlock also comes with a large set of downsides because of this streamlined focus. While the arcade feel is its greatest strength, it also cuts way too deep within its core and fails to acknowledge some vital parts. For one, it has very little documentation, which makes progression tough to plan. Luckily, the game is surprisingly easy to pick up and play, but the required knowledge to advance in it is something that should’ve been tackled with any form of clarity.

Secondly, the game lacks balance consistency that sees opponents both unfairly spawn entire armies out of nothing and see those fail to push through. Monsters and other realms create large peaks of challenge with uneven rewards and diplomacy is very basic.

The whole walks a tightrope between capable linear focus and superficial gameplay. It’s only due to Warlock’s oozing charm and well-designed priorities that it succeeds in gripping onto a much larger audience than just a very small demographic.

For a more detailed elaboration, please view the video review.

Daav Valentaten, NoobFeed (@Daavpuke)