Tencent and Wizards working on Magic: The Gathering Arena

Wizard of the Coast, the developer of the original Magic: The Gathering Online back in 2002, they went ahead and set forth for the next game in the series.

They’ve built games with Stainless Games over the years, such as Magic: The Gathering – Duels of Planeswalkers and Magic Duels: Origins. They did okay, but game reception was poor. Now they’ve decided to set up an in-house development studio called Magic Digital Studio for their next game.

Magic: The Gathering Online won’t be retired. But it will be designed to focus on an engaging and dynamic experience that’s true to playing the actual card game. It allows players and viewer to both watchers exciting and less confusing matchups. It also focuses on new sets with no backward compability for older card sets from previous games.

The game is said to integrate both:

“integrate modern online services that will create a dynamic overall experience and also someday integrate with other aspects of your Magic life.”

They’ve partnered up with Tencent to help bring Magic to more gamers “throughout the world.” Chris Cocks, the West Coast President states that he wants to bring the game to western players as it is in Asia, where the dominant playerbase resides.

Steven Ma, Senior VP of Tencent’s Interactive Entertainment Group states that it’s a “legendary game and has had a huge influence on culture and industry” and that they’re “thrilled to bring this amazing experience to players in Asia and look forward to helping expand its global community.

They also have plans to bring the game to PC, mobile, and console platforms.

Wizards of the Coast announced that their latest card expansion set Dominaria will be on Arena during a large update schedule. It’ll be available today with the economy updates as well. There will also be in-game events and many more. You can check out the forums for more details.

Every single card from the new expansion will be playable in digital format and include news skins and visual improvements. There will also be an experimental event going on in New Zealand where pre-release cards will include in-game codes that they can redeem for virtual items as well.