Dire Wolf Digital have debuted their upcoming card game, Eternal, in a new video. It’s a mixture of Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone, along with a few bits of spice of its own, and it’s worth paying attention to because of the folks working on it. Among them are some of the best MTG players to ever touch the game, all designing cards, playtesting and coming up with new ideas for the genre.
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One of them, Luis Scott-Vargas – a champion at the highest level of MTG and a member of the Hall of Fame – shows off what they’ve built in the first video for the game:
There’s a lot of MTG in there, though with something more like Hex’s resource system. Clearly Hearthstone-inspired too, and with a few of its own quirks when it comes to individual mechanics. A lot of people are trying to replicate this formula right now, of course, but these guys should, by experience, be better at it than anyone else. Beta for the game, which is still mostly mysterious beyond the above video and a few bits of info leaking out of a showing at PAX South, is due in the coming weeks. Sign up on the official site.
It is going to be free to play, with everything earnable, but no details on the ratio of play time to card quality or how much it’ll cost to buy-in if you want to be immediately competitive. They’re also pushing their AI hard, based as it is on some of the best card game players in the world, and promise new cards will be released regularly, not just in large sets every so often.
Dire Wolf are also working on Legends, the Elder Scrolls cardgame that Bethesda debuted at E3 last year. We’ve heard almost nothing of that since its official announcement, and it was originally assumed to be popping up last year, but was delayed. I’m excited to see what all that expert knowledge produces in both games, though do wonder if it can ever hold a candle to the Hearthstone juggernaut, particularly when it relies on waiting for your opponent to make decisions on your turn.