Magic: The Gathering is an inherently competitive game. It requires players to come together and test their decks against one another, ultimately resulting in shared memories of tension, strategy, and victory or defeat. However, Magic Legends is taking the multiplayer heart of Magic: The Gathering in a different direction. This is an inherently multiplayer game. Magic Legends encourages fans to squad up and explore the multiverse together, rather than using their decks against each other all the time. While traveling the Magic multiverse is a fun idea on its own, it's even more exciting that players can share in the journey with friends.
However, Magic Legends' multiplayer has an odd quirk to it. Players can only have parties of up to three players. It became the industry standard a long time ago that any game with multiplayer can support two or up to four players, but Magic Legends breaks the convention. It isn't the first to do so, though. There's actually been quite a few very visible games released in recent history that specifically request fans to play in groups of three. Where is this trend coming from? Why is it that developers have suddenly decided to switch over to this new party size for so many different games?
The Broad Scope of Three-Player
The three-player phenomenon doesn't appear to be restricted to any particular genre. Some years ago, Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes, where three Links controlled by three players had to cooperate to explore dungeons, solve puzzles, and defeat monsters. That's in spite of Nintendo's previous four-player Zelda endeavors. In contrast to this action-adventure example, Apex Legends has made the three-player format pretty famous. The smaller party size sure hasn't gotten in Apex Legends' way; it's been out for a few years now and remains one of the most popular battle royales on the market.
Notably, though, there's a lot of looter games turning to the three-player format. Destiny is one of the oldest examples, calling for parties of three in its various strikes. Apparently Bungie is fond of the format, because Destiny 2 kept the party size that way. Another example is the upcoming Outriders from People Can Fly. This new IP will be taking notes from Destiny and keeping party sizes to only three. It's interesting to see how this specific restriction is apparently beginning to take hold on the looter genre while other games like Borderlands 3 preserve 4-player traditions.
Cause for Change
So why exactly are so many AAA games interested in three-player? The answer might actually come from the looters who have picked up the trend. It seems some developers have found that three player is something of a sweet spot when designing their games. It's a large enough party that players aren't as likely to get overwhelmed as a party of two, but it's small enough that there's not as much chaos or confusion as a party of four might result in, especially in open world games. It also seems like three player looters like Destiny or Outriders might have an easier time distributing said loot if there's less people that need rewarding.
With that in mind, Magic Legends' intention to set the party size at three might mean a lot about the loot of the game. Alternatively, it could mean that Cryptic Studios and Perfect World have just found that groups of three are the easiest to balance combat around. That would make a lot of sense. Since players have so much freedom in designing their decks, it might be hard to present a challenge to bigger groups of players. They'll simple find huge combos between their decks to pull off that make everything easier. It's a shame that larger groups can't play Magic Legends together, but many fans will likely take what they can get. It's still bound to be one of the most immersive dives into the Magic multiverse to date.
Magic Legends starts open beta on March 23, 2021 on PC.