Full ReleasePC

Magicka

Arrowhead Game Studios · RPG, Action, Indie

Overview

Magicka is a satirical action-adventure game set in a rich fantasy world based on Norse mythology. The player assumes the role of a wizard from a sacred order tasked with stopping an evil sorcerer who has thrown the world into turmoil, his foul creations besieging the forces of good.

Players will be able to combine the elements to cast spells, wreaking havoc and devastation on the minions of darkness. They will also be able to team up with friends and fight their way through the campaign, or test their skills in the magickal arts through other challenging modes.

In Magicka, up to four players take on a grand adventure to save their world from certain doom using a fully dynamic spell system. The adventure mode takes the players across three different levels, ranging from the lush forests of mountain valleys to the frozen halls of the Mountain King where wits and creative thinking are the keys to victory.

In the unlockable hardcore challenge mode, players fight off waves of enemies to earn their place on local and online leaderboards.

Main Features:

Innovative and dynamic spell casting system
Up to four-player co-op in all game modes, as well as a single-player option
Fight your way through 13 different campaign levels
Explore an expansive realm of adventure to defeat the evil wizard
Find and unlock challenges, items, and powerful Magicks
Experience the parody and satire of a clichéd fantasy world

From the game's Steam store page.

THE GAMEQ VERDICT9,773 reviews analyzed

What players are actually saying

1. Summary

In Magicka every spell is built on the fly from eight elements and friendly fire is always on, so reviewers describe groups of friends spending as much time blowing each other up and reviving each other as fighting goblins. The writing adds a steady stream of film and game references, gibberish dialogue and a tutor named Vlad who insists he is not a vampire. In the reviews written from 2011 to 2017, 88% recommend the game, and the complaints were about crashes and bugs, keyboard-heavy controls, a campaign tuned for a full party that punishes solo players, and a pile of DLC.

Later reviews are far less positive. 62% of the reviews written from 2018 to 2026 recommend the game, and only 40% of those written in 2025. Crashes are the main complaint of this period: they appear in 68% of the negative reviews written from 2018 on, and in 57% of all negative reviews. Players describe crashes every few minutes, at level ends and in co-op lobbies, on Windows 10 and 11, and several blame the same updates that, they say, added a Paradox account login, an in-game shop and DLC banners. Some of these negative reviews come from people who grew up with the game ("Legendary game of my childhood ruined by negligence."), and some of the players who still recommend it point newcomers to a fan-made patch on GitHub or an older build. Few negative reviews fault the spell system or the co-op design itself; most are about getting the game to run.

2. What keeps coming up

What players praise

Co-op chaos where friendly fire is the funHigh

A third of the reviews (33%) talk about co-op, multiplayer or playing with friends, more than any other subject. Up to four wizards share the screen, team damage can't be turned off, and reviving a fallen friend takes a short spell, so groups spend much of their time killing each other and laughing about it. One player notes that "friendly fire is by far the most common cause of death", another that "I think my friends and I died to each other more than any of the enemies actually killed us." Their stories are about crossed beams, mines that launch a teammate into the air and an accidental party wipe right after a boss fight. The word "friendship" turns up in dozens of reviews, nearly always in a joke about the game ending one. Not everyone enjoys it: one negative review says of the team kills "Personally I found it stressful and annoying." and wishes team damage could be switched off.

Building spells from eight elementsHigh

The spell system comes up in 18% of all reviews and 40% of the longer reviews. Players like that there is no mana and no cooldown: you queue up to five elements, then cast them as a beam, a spray, an area blast, a ward on yourself or an enchantment on your weapon, and the elements interact (water and cold make ice, a wet enemy conducts lightning, a wet wizard electrocutes himself). Some say it makes them feel like a wizard, and others that progress lives in their hands rather than in a level bar: "the player levels up, not the character", "it's all about player skill as there is no leveling up", "The mana pool is your memory!" One short review puts it as "Imagine you're an idiot. Now imagine you have the power of a minor deity." Learning the combinations takes practice, and reviewers who bring up the learning curve mostly say the effort pays off. Whether the system stays varied across a whole campaign is a separate argument (see the split panel).

Jokes, references and VladHigh

Players list nods to Monty Python, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Warhammer 40,000 and plenty of games, dialogue spoken in a gibberish mix of Swedish-sounding words, and Vlad, whose "not a vampire" running gag is repeated in dozens of reviews. Humor comes up in 16% of reviews. One early fan summed up the tone as "A little bit Monty Python, a little bit Tenacious D, a little bit silly, and very funny." Some find the meme humor grating: in 2014 one player complained the game was "basically spouting internet memes in your face constantly", and a 2026 reviewer found that "The humor and lore/plot are a bit cringey and get old very soon." Reviewers who discuss the story call it silly, corny or slight, and one says it "is mostly used as an excuse to lob nerd culture refrences at the player."

Couch co-op and family nightsLow

Local co-op on one PC with controllers, and later Steam Remote Play, makes this a family game for a smaller group: parents playing through with their kids, siblings, partners. A 2014 reviewer wrote that "the multiplayer is an absolute dream for local co-op", and a 2026 player running it on Linux without crashes "Had a lot of fun playing this with family!" The catch, covered under controls, is that several players find a controller slower or clumsier than a keyboard.

The soundtrackLow

A small group singles out the music, among them a reviewer who wrote "Magicka has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard."

Where players are split

Difficulty, especially for solo playersMedium

Difficulty or challenge comes up in 7.5% of reviews and playing alone in 7%. Players who call the game challenging usually mean it as praise ("A surprisingly challenging oldie that makes me laugh"), and a few find it "very fun solo". The split is over solo play. Players report that the story mode does not adjust to the size of the party, and a lone wizard has nobody to revive him: "Difficulty does not scale based on the number of players." "The story mode's difficulty is the same no matter how many players you are. This makes Single Player almost impossible." One 2016 review is titled "Co-Op Chaos, Single-Player Suffering". Full groups see the same imbalance from the other side: "if many people are playing (3-4 players) - the game is too easy, but if you're alone - the game is insanely hard." The specific complaints are about enemies that stun-lock, kill in one hit, or knock a wizard off a cliff or into water: "A single enemy can literally solo stun lock a lone player to death", "Insane difficulty spike in chapter six."

DLC count and priceMedium

Some earlier reviewers recommend the campaign packs (Vietnam, The Stars Are Left, Dungeons and Daemons), and one called three of the packs "worth every penny". DLC comes up in 5.5% of reviews. Others object to the sheer number of robe, weapon and cosmetic packs: the game "ended up with more DLC than game", "heck the DLCs combined price is 3x the game base price", and even a positive 2026 review says "The DLC Spam is obnoxious". The base game was long praised as cheap fun ("It's long, it's tough, it's huge fun, and it's cheap. But it will never be perfect."), while later negative reviews argue that a game that crashes this much shouldn't be sold at all: "This game should not be for sale in its current state."

Controls built for fast fingersMedium

Elements sit on QWER and ASDF, moving means holding a mouse button, and casting uses different clicks. Controls come up in 3% of all reviews and in 10% of the negative reviews written from 2011 to 2017. Fans treat them as a skill worth learning: "Getting used to the controls takes a little effort, but once you are, you get a real sense of concocting spells, as opposed to merely pressing a button." Others never got past the finger work: "it felt like my fingers were playing DDR", "Pure chaos controls, absolutely no clue whats happening most of the time." The specific complaints repeat across years: you can't move while casting ("i hate the fact that you cant walk and cast"), movement ties up a hand ("why make it so I have to constantly hold a mouse button to move?"), keys can't be rebound ("There don't seem to be control settings where I can change this."), and a gamepad is slower ("the xbox controls are slower and lacking"). Some think the wonkiness is part of the joke: "The controls sometimes feel a little wonky, but I have the feeling that in a way they are supposed to be."

A deep system or a few dominant combosLow

Some players find that a handful of spells carry the whole game: "You basically stick with 3 or 4 combos throughout most of the game." "You can almost play the entire game by spamming boulders or lightning bolts." A 2026 reviewer felt the same: "Spell combos aren't as expansive as I thought they would be". Others say the enemy mix forces you to adapt and that you "can't just find the one OP combination and spam it". The lightning bolt and rock spells are the usual suspects, and fans trade their favorite key sequences in the reviews.

Magicka or Magicka 2Low

Players who compare the two disagree. Some recommend the sequel as the version that runs: "The sequel is a lot easier to get working and is generally more polished". Others prefer the original, writing "I highly recommend this over the Magicka 2". A negative review that warns of more time spent loading and rebooting than playing still finds that "Magicka 2 unfortunately tunes down the crazy high damage potential and oneshotting that came with expertise in the combat system."

What frustrates players

Crashes on modern WindowsHigh

19% of all reviews mention crashes, freezes or a game that won't launch, and they appear in 57% of negative reviews. Launch-era reviews from 2011 already complained about crashes and desync, and crashes came up in about a fifth of the negative reviews from 2014 to 2017. From 2018 on they are in 68% of negative reviews, and in 77% of those written in 2025. Players describe crashes every few minutes to every half hour, at level ends and loading screens, in cutscenes and on launch, on Windows 10 and 11, and a few say the game locked up their whole PC ("Used to be a great game, now its basically malware."). A few Linux players say it runs better there ("Runs way better on Linux then on Windows"), though not all ("I get crashes both on Windows and Linux to the point of unplayability."). Many negative crash reviews still praise the game: "One of the best games you cannot play anymore.", "5/5 gameplay; 1/5 stability", "Legendary game of my childhood ruined by negligence." Some recommend it anyway, like the player who scored it "gameplay 10/10 funny lore 10/10 game running when you want it to 0/10", and 12% of the positive reviews written from 2018 on mention crashes. The complaint comes from new buyers who can't get past the menu or the tutorial as well as from returning fans with years in the game.

Online co-op that crashes, desyncs and drops playersMedium

Crashes tied to multiplayer, lobbies or hosting come up in 4% of all reviews and 14% of negative ones, and smaller groups describe desyncs, disconnects and failed connections. Several negative reviewers say they bought the game for multiplayer or call it the best part of the game. The complaint goes back to launch: "It's a wonderful combination of crashing every 10 minutes and horrible desync in multiplayer." (2011), and in 2014 one player joked that "the hardest boss is easily the Menu Boss" because getting four friends into one game without a crash took upwards of 15 minutes. A 2024 reviewer says an update made it worse: "now the multiplayer Crashes to desktop every 3 minutes".

Left for the community to fixMedium

Reviews that call the game abandoned or point to fan fixes make up 2.6% of all reviews and 7.5% of negative ones. The fixes they name are MagickaFix on GitHub (which, one player explains, raises the game's memory limit "from 2GB to 4GB"), a community patch by a player who "found several underlying causes for the instability", and downgrading to an older version such as 1.5.1.0 or 1.4.16.0. Results vary: "After installing the Magicka Fix 1.4 from GitHub, the game worked a lot better.", or a patch that "fixed at least most of my crash problems in singleplayer". Others resent having to do it at all: "the game shouldn't require a patch to work in the first place", "I wanted to play a game, not have a second job." Even a positive review warns that "It requires user tinkering just to get it to function". Players with 50 or more hours write 22% of these reviews, double their share of all reviews.

Performance and no frame capLow

Older reviews complain about lag and poor optimization, including on laptops and integrated graphics. Later ones warn about the missing frame limit: "The game has no FPS cap otherwise and it WILL max out any computer you throw at it unless you limit the frame rate yourself." One player's advice is "Turn on V-Sync on the title screen so your GPU won't cry running this game." A few players with 4K screens add that the interface isn't scaled for high resolutions.

Lost progress after crashes and deathsLow

Players report that checkpoints sit at the start of areas, quitting restarts the chapter, and dying or crashing resets the staves and weapons you picked up. These come up in 3% of negative reviews, often alongside crashes: "the game makes you restart the level and wipes your weapons back to default anytime you crash". Back in 2014, when crashes were a smaller share of the complaints, one player already asked for "some sort of quick save so I don't have to replay a level if I need to quit".

A small group, mostly writing from 2018 on, objects to changes they say came years after release: a Paradox account login, an in-game shop and DLC banners on the main menu, paid HUD skins, a required Steam overlay, and the end of host-only DLC sharing for campaign packs. "No, I will not make an account at Paradox Interactive to play a game I paid money for." "THEY'RE CHARGING YOU MONEY FOR HUDS." "The update disabled the ability to play with friends who owned the DLC, since originally only the host needed it." "Steam overlay required to play." Several of these reviews link the changes to the start of the crashes.

3. The player conversation

The reviews fall into two eras. 88% of the 2011 to 2017 reviews are positive, and many of them are a single friendly-fire joke ending in "10/10". Their complaints mix crashes and bugs with design gripes: controls, solo difficulty, a few dominant spells and DLC packs.

The share of positive reviews falls from 91% of those written in 2014 to 70% in 2018, 54% in 2023 and 40% in 2025, with 45% among the game-focused reviews of 2026. Nostalgia becomes its own thread: 2% of reviews (220) talk about childhood, playing "years ago" or how the game "used to" work, three quarters of them are negative, and 88% were written from 2018 on. Many negative reviews in this period open with praise for the game, and some positive ones come with instructions (patch links, rollback steps, V-Sync, Linux). That advice on fixes and rollbacks comes disproportionately from players with 50 or more hours, while crash complaints come from new buyers and long-time players alike.

4. What the developers could do

Fix the crashes on Windows 10 and 11. Crashes appear in 57% of negative reviews and 68% of those written from 2018 on, and players name the triggers: level ends, loading screens, cutscenes and launch.
Stabilize online co-op. 14% of negative reviews tie crashes to multiplayer, and players describe groups losing whole sessions to disconnects and desyncs in the mode several of them say they bought the game for.
Ship the community's fixes or the stable older build officially. Reviewers already point to MagickaFix, another community stability patch and rollbacks to 1.5.1.0 or 1.4.16.0, and 7.5% of negative reviews call the game abandoned or point to these fixes.
Save progress mid-chapter and keep gear after a crash or a quit. Players describe losing whole levels and their staves to a single crash, which turns every crash into lost time.
Scale the campaign to the number of players. Solo players say the story mode stays as hard alone as with a full party, while groups of four find it too easy.
Remove the account login, menu shop and overlay requirement, and restore host-only DLC sharing. Players who object to these later changes say they broke a game that worked before and stopped friends without every pack from playing together.
Add key rebinding, a frame cap and better controller support. Players ask to change bindings and to move without holding a mouse button, warn that the uncapped frame rate maxes out their hardware, and say gamepad play is slower than keyboard.
Offer the DLC as one fairly priced complete edition. Reviewers complain about the pile of robe, weapon and cosmetic packs, which one player priced at three times the base game.