Blade and Sorcery is a fantasy VR game currently in early access on Steam and being developed by WarpFrog. The game’s focus on physics-based fighting gives its sword combat a weightiness that is often missing from VR games. Its emphasis on sandbox arenas and creating unique fighting styles has also made the game the perfect jumping off point for modders that wish to add new weapons and spells to the game.
As is the case with most mods, the first instinct for many modders was to add pop-culture items and weapons to the game. Everything from lightsabers to Wolverine claws has been added to Blade and Sorcery through mods.
Most of the mods for Blade and Sorcery add physical weapons as re-skins of the medieval weapons that already exist in the game. But modders have also created many new spells for Blade and Sorcery's magic combat. Now a dedicated modder named Lyneca on YouTube has created a new mod for the game which adds a series of magic spells which are inspired by the Harry Potter series.
The default spells that mages can use in Blade and Sorcery are classic medieval fantasy game spells like fireballs and lighting attacks. Lyneca’s mod adds not only a more familiar Harry Potter style wand to cast spells with, but also a series of more advanced spells for the player to use. The modder’s video showcases a variety of recognizable spells for fans of the series such as Wingardium Leviosa, the levitation spell, and Expelliarmus, the disarming spell. Some darker spells from the Harry Potter series have also made it into the mod including the iconic Avada Kedavra killing curse, which Lyneca has taken some artistic liberties with and made it simply cut the head off the Blade and Sorcery enemy. Interestingly enough, this forbidden killing curse was also seen being used in the Hogwarts Legacy gameplay reveal trailer.
Each spell in Lyneca’s showcase is activated with its own specific movement of the wand, which has been something Harry Potter fans have been hoping to see implemented into a full Harry Potter VR title for years. This style of gameplay would allow players to memorize these spell movements and then string together different combinations of spells for combat. The Harry Potter series is a popular subject for this VR concept not only because the franchise is so massively popular, but also because many of the spells in the Harry Potter series aren't generic damage spells like those seen in most fantasy games.
One of the major criticisms of some of the previous Harry Potter games was that the spells were often only generic damage attacks and that the player never felt like a magic user from the Harry Potter series. The spells from the books and films of the Harry Potter franchise are often more creative and meant to disorient or incapacitate the enemy. Lyneca’s mod showcases how these types of spells could make for more interesting and varied magic combat in VR.
Blade and Sorcery is available in early access on Steam.