Wizards of the Coast Is Beginning to Get ‘Magic' Fans' Gripes With Less Fantastical Aesthetics

Gizmodo

5 hours ago

Magic: The Gathering is having an even bigger moment than usual this year, thanks to a lot of attention around its splashy crossovers and its rapid rollout of sets. But with that attention, there's definitely been some consternation about just how wide-reaching Magic's aesthetic is getting, between experimental in-universe sets and those aforementioned 'Universes Beyond' bringing more and more licensed material into the game. In a fascinating new article looking at the major sets of the last year, the game's head designer is starting to reckon with those lessons learned… lessons that are going to make for a very interesting reaction to the game's next big collab.
Today Magic head designer Mark Rosewater released his 2025 State of Design article on the official Magic website, looking back at feedback and lessons to be learned from the release of almost every major Magic set released in the last year (up to, but not including, Edge of Eternities, which released on August 1). There are lots of interesting points Rosewater makes in the piece, reflecting some of the biggest fan concerns about Magic's direction from a mechanical and aesthetic point of view, from the game's eagerness to move on from themes every set, creating an issue where mechanical elements are introduced and then left unsupported, to an awareness of the game's complexity creep from the sheer amount of interactions possible even when Magic introduces individually simplistic new mechanics.
But one of the most intriguing lessons to be learned that Rosewater highlights across several of the sets covered in the piece—Bloomburrow, Duskmourn: House of Horror, Foundations, Aetherdrift, Tarkir: Dragonstorm, and Final Fantasy—is a regular criticism Magic has faced as of late: that the game has occasionally pushed its fantastical too far into elements that don't capture Magic's feel. One particular pain point Rosewater highlighted was in Duskmourn, a horror-themed set that included several more direct aspersions to classic horror media, rooted in our own world.
'Players, it seems, are not fans of what I'm going to call 'mundane modernity.' Magic has had many sets, such as Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty and The Brothers' War which push into more of a science-fiction feel, with items far more technically advanced than one would normally find in a fantasy story,' Rosewater wrote. 'That doesn't generally bother many players. Some things Duskmourn: House of Horror did for the first time bothered players, like having characters wearing and using things that we actually use: things like sneakers, or jeans, or a baseball bat. Part of fantasy is the idea that you're coming to a world that is fundamentally different than your own. Fantasy wants to be inspirational, and seeing everyday objects which are a part of all of our daily lives deflates that.'
As Rosewater acknowledged, not every Magic set is rooted in explicitly fantastical material, from the sci-fantasy of sets like Edge of Eternities to collaborations in Universes Beyond like Doctor Who or Warhammer 40,000, which have fantastical elements rooted in science-fictional or real-world designs. But Magic also has a strong history of being able to root that kind of aesthetic in fantasy, which Duskmourn's more explicit horror callouts lacked. At a time when Wizards is also reckoning with the increase of non-Magic-original sets in the game, depending on the crossover, it's going to be an issue that continues to concern players (even beyond the general existence of Universes Beyond, complaints around which Rosewater acknowledged as a 'sentiment [that] continually shrinks over time').
It's an interesting thing for Rosewater to acknowledge, though, as Magic is now little more than a month away from the release of its next set, Marvel's Spider-Man. Although there are fantastical elements in a set about a superhero scientist and peculiar foes, like most of good Marvel, it's built into the so-called 'world outside our window.' The Final Fantasy set did a great job translating Final Fantasy to the world of Magic, while drawing on a myriad of aesthetics from steampunk to sci-fi to more traditional medieval fantasy, and managed to effectively balance those aesthetic styles with what players typically expect from Magic.
Will Spider-Man walk the web-rope and balance that vibe, or will it end up with reactions like Duskmourn? We'll find out if there are more lessons to learn when the set hits shelves at the end of September.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.