Artificer: Science of Magic Review

The past year has seen a number of high profile delays in the video game industry, with games like Cyberpunk 2077, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 being pushed back, with the excuse that they needed more polish. Artificer: Science of Magic is a game that has been delayed several times already and it could have used another one, as its grand vision and great ideas are hamstrung by a distinct lack of polish, turning what could be an awesome game into a glitch-filled slog.

Artificer: Science of Magic stars Raymond Everett, whose spaceship crash lands on a strange planet. In order to survive in this new environment, Raymond needs to learn more about the fauna and local wildlife. It doesn't take long for Raymond to realize that he has landed on a world where magic exists, and he has to go on a Harry Potter meets Robinson Crusoe style adventure in order to learn the secrets of sorcery and find his way home.

Planetwrecked

Artificer: Science of Magic has a fantastic concept. Raymond has crashlanded on a planet and the player has to learn about their environment in order to survive. This involves fighting the local wildlife and performing autopsies on their body, performing alchemy with the plants and fungi in order to brew potions, and constructing buildings, tools, and workbenches in order to create a base. The wildlife is anything but friendly and it seems as if everything is out to kill poor Raymond.

The game has a great concept, but it's so poorly put together that it doesn't really matter...

Albus Darwindore

We had originally intended to review Artificer: Science of Magic several months ago, with a build that was easily one of the buggiest games we've ever reviewed. Since then, the game has received several updates and is in a more polished state, but it's still nowhere near ready for launch. There are constant issues involving pathfinding, items not loading correctly, items not spawning, debug messages appearing during gameplay, and numerous graphical problems. This game is nowhere near ready for release and players need to know going in that they're buying something that is unfinished. The number of bugs in the game is unacceptable for something that people are paying for.

These are to say nothing of the design flaws with the game. The use of most items is never explained, there are far too many steps for building many items, the process of gathering items from resource spots is a chore and can take forever to complete, and the lack of guidance throughout the early game means that the player is often left stumbling around the world, trying to work out what to do next.

The combat system in the game is practically nonexistent, as the player holds down a key to attack and the enemy keeps running into them. It's also really easy for two monsters to gang up on the player and decimate them, due to the limited mobility of the player and the lack of combat options. As such, combat becomes an annoying form of kiting, where the player needs to lead the enemy away from its allies so that it can repeatedly run into their weapon.

Sorcery Survival

Artificer: Science of Magic has two modes at launch - Adventure and Casual, with the main difference being that the player only has one shot at life in Adventure mode. Players shouldn't attempt the Adventure mode at all, even with a walkthrough sitting in front of them, as the game is so deadly that hours of progress can be lost in an instant. This isn't helped by an early story development that involves the player being infected with a petrification disease, with little guidance as to how to make the cure or how the disease works. This ticking clock element should be introduced way later into the game, as it adds unnecessary haste to the period of time when the player is still learning the ropes. Artificer: Science of Magic has an intriguing game world and the player should be allowed to explore it and play with the alchemy & magic system, without needing to be rushed to solve quest goals that are poorly explained.

The game does a poor job of explaining how its various concepts work, leaving the player to resort to trial and error in order to proceed. The minigames that are used to complete research tasks and make items are a nice touch, but the interface isn't helpful in guiding the player as to how they should be played. Artificer: Science of Magic is a game that could really use a better tutorial, as the barebones one that is present in the game does little to prepare the player for living in the magical wild.

Artificer: Science of Magic has a lot of potential, and with time, it could become one of the most challenging and interesting games in the survival genre. As it stands, the game is a mess and should not have been released in its current form. The ideas present in the game are interesting enough that we might take another look further down the road if the gameplay has been significantly improved and the bugs are fixed, but for now, we can't recommend Artificer: Science of Magic.