US American Magazines[]
Computer Gaming World (4/5, 80%)[]
The CGW covered Master of Magic in 3 issues.
September 1994: Preview
The article was written by Alan Emrich and Petra Schlunk who were also two of the three authors behind the MoM Strategy Guide. Petra Schlunk also wrote the manual. It's the only article I found that pointed out the Magic the Gathering influence in MoM. Also at one point, the article speaks of 6 Myrrian races (although there are just 5 of them in the final product). MoM was also the cover picture of that issue.
December 1994: Review
The Review was written by Robert L. Hayes. He gave 4 out of 5 stars which converts to a score of 80%. His major critic point was that MoM was released a few weeks too soon, leaving MoM with game-breaking bugs and crashes (see Downgrade Patches).
January 1995: Strategies
The Tips & Tricks article was also written by Robert L. Hayes. It's very combat-focused.
May 1997: Hall of Fame
Master of Magic was added to the selection of CGW's Hall of Fame worthy games. In the following issues, it was listed in the Hall of Fame with the description: "The atmosphere of Magic: The Gathering with the sophistication of Civ".
PC Gamer (83 %)[]
PC Gamer was a magazine that got separate issues for the US American and British market. I am sure Master of Magic got more coverage in this magazine but there aren't any further issues online. The following review is from the US American issue for January 1995.
Electronic Entertainment (5/5, 100 %)[]
The following review is from the January 1995 issue. Master of Magic got 5 out of 5 stars under value.
Computer Player (7/10, 70 %)[]
The following review is from the February 1995 issue. Ugh, the layout of this magazine looks so bad.
Next Generation (3/5, 60 %)[]
The following review is from the January 1995 issue. This was actually the very first issue which is maybe a reason for the very low score.
Infoworld[]
Infoworld was a PC magazine - not entirely dedicated to games.Thus games didn't get a rating; they just got a smiley. The following text is from the December 1994 issue.
Interactive Entertainment[]
Interactive Entertainment was an interactive multimedia CD-ROM magazine covering DOS, Windows, and console games. The software ran on Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. It featured reviews in the form of audio accompanied with screenshots that switch about every 30 seconds.
October 1994: Preview
November 1994: Review
December 1994 onwards: Hint and Tips
Australian Magazines[]
Hyper (86%)[]
The Australian multi-platform magazine Hyper covered Master of Magic latish on a third page.
June 1995: Review
German Magazines[]
- Main article: German Game Magazine Coverage
Master of Magic was reviewed in 6 different German magazines. All reviews happened at the end of 1994, although MoM wasn't published in Germany before March 1995 & patch 1.31. Nonetheless, MoM scored between 83% and 87% every single time. All magazines used Civilization as an starting point to the article, but none mentioned the influence Magic the Gathering had on MoM. Some magazines compared MoM to Colonization because both games were released at the same time and published by MicroProse. Some magazines also saw similarities to the Warlords series (neutral faction, heroes, fantasy genre). Some magazines claimed that MoM is a mix of Strategy and Role Playing Game. The ratings in detail:
- ASM: 83% (10 out of 12)
- PC Gamer: 83%
- PC Player: 84%
- PC Games: 85%
- PC Joker: 85%
- Play Time: 87%
Adverts[]
Sometimes, MicroProse promoted MoM with a commercial page in those magazines. Those advertisements used the purple eye known from MoMs front cover and boxing, but didn't offer any closer information to the game. The German advertisement says "keep your eyes open for MoM".
Why there wasn't any sequel[]
Reasons can be found on Wikipedia & co but game magazines can give some further insight. Computer Gaming World (CGW) had good connections to Simtex in particular. Tom Hughes, Alan Emrich and Petra Schlunk were authors at CGW and they wrote the Official Strategy Guide to Master of Magic. In fact they helped Steve Barcia and Simtex to find a publisher for Star Lords in the first place. Star Lords was re-branded to Master of Orion after the publishing deal with MicroProse, a publisher and developer founded by Sid Meier and Bill Stealey (and a sub-diary of Spectrum Holobyte since 1993). The good connections to Simtex might be a reason why CGW didn't pay much attention to the broken AI in their review, although this was a big issue in the earlier versions of Master of Magic (MoM).
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Anyway, during the release period of MoM a scenario pack was planned but the idea was scrapped. Instead, Simtex released 1830: Railroads & Robber Barons in 1995 and Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares in 1996. Originally, Simtex also planned to release Mech Lords in 1995, another turn based strategy game but this time futuristic, without global map and published by New World Computing. Adverts and previews to that game can be found in game magazines. Mech Lords was delayed and re-branded to Metal Lords, partially because of a lawsuit from FASA who thought Mech Lords was too close to their BattleTech Universe and MechWarrior in particular. Metal Lords got cancelled eventually in mid 1996. Simtex had a further game in development: Guardians: Agents of Justice. This game resembled UFO / X-COM but this time with superheroes. The development of Guardians also took much longer than anticipated.
| Metal Lords Advert |
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In 1995/1996 Simtex got into financial trouble. Master of Orion I & II as well as Master of Magic were critically acclaimed but not such a big financial success (maybe the missing copy protection in MoM was a reason for that, MoM was very popular in Germany and Eastern Europe). Eventually, Simtex / Spectrum HoloByte bought out Simtex and Simtex was re-branded as MicroProse Texas. In 1996 MicroProse also got into financial trouble itself and staff was dismissed to reduce costs. Sid Meier departed from MicroProse afterwards (forming a new company named Firaxis Games), and Steve Barcia took over Sid Meier's last job. MicroProse didn't see enough potential in Guardians: Agents of Justice, so it got canceled. Originally, Simtex had plans to release a sequel to Master of Magic in 1998 but this also didn't play a role under MicroProse. Simtex / MicroProse Texas got closed in 1998, in preparation for the sale of MicroProse to Hasbro InterActive.
| Column regarding the shut down of Simtex |
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In late 1999 / early 2000 there were rumors that Hasbro InterActive would make a sequel to Master of Magic. However, this project never left the planning stage - Master of Orion III did that though; it was released in 2003 after 3 years of development. In 2001 Infogrames took over Hasbro Interactive for $100 million, and MicroProse ceased to exist. Shortly afterwards, Infogrames reinvented the Atari brand (Atari, SA) which they also acquired from Hasbro Interactive. There weren't any serious plans for Master of Magic under Infogrames / Atari SA. In 2013 Wargaming.net bought the Master of Orion franchise from the Atari bankruptcy proceedings. However, the rights to Master of Magic still lie at Atari which they use to sell it at gog.com ("Good Old Games").
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Short version why there hasn't been any Master of Magic sequel:
- Simtex had other games in the pipeline which pushed their plans for a MoM sequel back to 1998
- Simtex got into financial trouble and was bought by MicroProse in 1996
- in the first years the rights went to companies which were also in financial trouble (MicroProse, partially Hasbro InterActive)
- in later years, the rights went to a company which didn't care about Master of Magic at all (Infogrames / Atari)
While there was no sequel, there have been "spiritual successors". Stardock Corporation made Elemental: War of Magic and Elemental: Fallen Enchantress in 2010 and 2012 respectively. Stardock intended to purchase the rights to Master of Magic from Atari, but then decided to create their own universe instead. And then there's Wastelands Interactive who released Worlds of Magic and Planar Conquest in 2015 and 2016 respectively. Sadly, all those mentioned games had a pretty low production value and the involved companies hadn't the know-how to make a good Master of Magic clone. There are a few good games though which were either inspired by Master of Magic or share some similarities: First of all, there's the Age of Wonders series with releases in 1999, 2002, 2003 and 2014. And secondly, there's Endless Legend from 2014.
Eventually still a sequel? (25 years after first MoM)[]
In August 2019, it was announced that the Master of Magic rights were bought by Slitherine Software and thus rescued from Atari's IP dungeon. Previously, Slitherine had done the same in case of Fantasy General and Close Combat. Estimated release date for the sequel is 2020. Nobody from the old development team (Simtex) will be involved.