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Sign up for Magicka: Wizard Wars’ alpha and (probably) get Magicka on Steam

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Controlled chaos. That’s Magicka: Wizard Wars’ thing. Developers Paradox North have reached into Arrowhead’s arcane game and plucked its spellcasting system from the soup of bugs and badness. Then they’ve built a solid new game around it that looks a bit like a MOBA, but isn’t.

It’s a terribly good idea. But for now, there’s only one way to get a headstart with Wizard Wars’ battle system: amid the bugs and the badness. Sign up for its alpha and, if enough do the same, you’ll bag the original Magicka on Steam.

Paradox have launched one of those showy “Look Ma, groundswell support” campaigns that sees more benefits unlocked as more potential players sign up. The first point along their player thermometer – one I’m sure they’re counting on reaching – sees each signer rewarded with the alpha key they’ve asked for. The second grants them another key for a friend, as well as a fancy staff.

It’s the third, rather more distant, point that promises Magicka on Steam, plus two additional alpha keys.

Sign up here to help your fellow magician along the way to that. Bear in mind, though, that the key doesn’t guarantee instant access to Wizard Wars’ closed alpha as you might expect – rather, merely a place in its queue. Paradox seem to have fudged the usual meaning of the word ‘key’ somewhat, but promise they’ll let players in as spots become available.

When does a mechanical bird bleed? When it’s for comic effect. That’s just the first nugget to be gleaned from last week’s fizzyMagicka: Wizard Wars footage.