Solasta: Crown of the Magister had the immense misfortune of launching into early access just two weeks after Baldur’s Gate 3 and was immediately compared to the former, often negatively, with Solasta: Crown of the Magister having worse visuals, laughably bad animations, terrible voice acting, mediocre dialogue, less interesting combat, far less interesting world design (at the time), and generally a feeling of being inferior to its nearest rival, which took not only the spotlight but the attention and custom of the majority of players interested in the genre.
Solasta: Crown of the Magister peaked at just 2,293 concurrent players in October 2020, while Baldur’s Gate 3 weighed in at an impressive 48,418 concurrent players despite only offering a single act and a smaller selection of character archetypes.
Solasta: Crown of the Magister was the more complete game at the time of its early access launch, but Baldur’s Gate 3 was categorically the more enjoyable one.
Facing stiff competition and a shrinking community (problems which Baldur’s Gate 3 also faced, but due to its larger community was more able to handle), Solasta: Crown of the Magister exited early access prematurely in May 2021, just seven months after entering the program, and well before Solasta: Crown of the Magister was the bug-free, content-rich title that its backers and early supporters had been expecting.
That being said, the launch was not terrible, and while many aspects of the game would be parcelled out into free updates and paid DLC, In May 2021 Solasta: Crown of the Magister reached its peak Steam concurrency with an impressive 8291 players, which ironically was over twice the size of Baldur’s Gates 3’s own May 2021 numbers (2,956), as it was a period in which Larian’s flagship CRPG was struggling to retain players as the hype had faded, and everyone had either played all of Act 1 or had opted to wait until the final release to sink their teeth into the meaty CRPG.
Despite “successfully” releasing Solasta: Crown of the Magister in May 2021, the developers knew they had to work hard to keep the community engaged and to do so, they opted for a very smart (but controversial) decision, which involved releasing paid DLC packs to fund the development of features that missed its May 2021 release, effectively leveraging the goodwill of the community to fund development, after Solasta: Crown of the Magister failed to sell enough copies to stay in early access long enough for them to be added before release.
While some feel this was a bad design and have an issue with the developers requiring the community to “pay again” to get the product they originally felt they were promised and invested in, I feel that the high quality of DLC releases and improvements to Solasta: Crown of the Magister has resulted in a much better game overall, and while yes much of this would have been impossible without players purchasing DLC, I have no issue supporting a game when the developer is passionate about it, and underestimating how much money will be needed to sell a project through to its completion is not a crime, and the developers should not be verbally abused or maligned for admitting they need to change their business model or plans to see it through to completion.
Honestly, I would rather pay a few extra dollars here or there and see a project I was excited about reach its fullest potential than not forgive the developers for accidentally underestimating how much money they would need to have everything ready for launch and refuse to back them further, only to watch a project I care about wither and die, while its developers are forced to either disband or work on other projects, and end up being held accountable for all of my own failings at the final judgement.
In July 2022, shortly after the release of its poorly received second content DLC (Lost Valley) in April, Solasta: Crown of the Magister was added to Xbox Game Pass and launched onto consoles (Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S) for the first time, resulting in the community swelling to previously unfathomable numbers, providing an audience for its DLC, this combined with the payment received by the developers for including their game in the Game Pass library resulted in higher quality updates going forward, and while the steam community has never surpassed its May 2021 numbers (though it came close!), the community was larger than ever, and the quality and popularity of DLC releases were higher than ever.
I must admit to being a fan of Pepsi Max; it’s by far my favourite carbonated beverage; however, I am under no illusions that Pepsi isn’t a distant second place to Coca-Cola, with a market share that is over twice (50% vs 20%) that of Pepsi.
However, there is enough room in the soda market for both Pepsi and Coca-Cola to thrive and thrive they have.
In the same way, while Baldur’s Gate 3 is a worldwide phenomenon with an estimated 15 million copies sold as of April 2024, Solasta: Crown of the Magister’s much more modest sales (estimated to be less than 2 million copies) are nothing to sneeze at.
Its time on Game Pass made it much more widely accessible to players who may never have considered playing a CRPG before, introducing them to worlds and places that for too long have been the exclusive domain of CRPG enthusiasts and “DnD nerds”, which helped not only Solasta to succeed but helped the genre become even more widely acceptable to the wider gaming community, many of whom may have never even considered playing a CRPG, with so many flashier role-playing games on the market.
Retailing at just $59.99, Solasta – Lightbringers Edition offers excellent value for money for those who want to expierance all that Solasta has to offer at a not insubstantial discount (around 29% off), including all DLC (except the soundtrack), however, the very fact this version exists is because Solasta is no longer in development, and no further content updates are expected to be released; however, the developers may opt to work with mod makers in future to release paid community expansions, a model which has worked well for several others games, providing the developers with what is essentially free income, and the community with additional high-quality content.
The developers acted very graciously when addressing Baldurs Gate 3 and how often Solasta – Lightbringers Edition was unfavourably compared to it by saying this shortly after Solasta – Lightbringers Edition’s release in response to players arguing over which game was better.
That said, we’d like to address the elephant in the room – namely, Baldur’s Gate 3 and other RPGs.
It is absolutely fine to compare games, discuss about the differences, share your likes and dislikes – for instance, it is no secret that the characters in BG3 are absolutely gorgeous when you compare them to ours.
And you know what? That’s 100% okay to talk about! What is NOT okay is spitting on people’s hard work – whether it is ours, or Larian’s, or any other studio’s. - Myzzrym (developer)
While Solasta’s character creator is not as in-depth as Pathfinders or as pretty as Baldur’s Gate 3, it is very functional and allows players to customise their character’s skills, abilities, backgrounds and special appearance to a fairly high degree.
Solasta’s dungeon maker allows players to Create (PC), Share (PC), and Play (All Platforms) user-created campaigns via Mod.io, ensuring that long after the developers have moved onto other projects, players will continue to be able to experience new and exciting RPG adventures created by the Solasta community, something which is honestly the main reason to play Solasta when titles such as Baldur’s Gate 3, and the Pathfinder games exist.
As of April 2024, 375 custom campaigns/adventures are available to download for free on Mod.io, with some offering over 30 hours of content, including custom maps, NPCs, dialogue, quests, and, in some instances, even custom mechanics.
While PC and Xbox users can play together, the PS5 community remains isolated due to Sony’s strict cross-platform requirements. This is a shame, as it does little but split the community of smaller games that cannot afford the changes/costs required to become crossplay compliant in Sony’s eyes.
Despite offering an 8th generation version of Solasta: Crown of the Magister for the Xbox One, as of April 2024, only PS5 users get to enjoy Solasta: Crown of the Magister, with the developers giving no indication that they will be backporting the game to one of the most popular consoles ever released, especially when so many developers strive to release Ps4 versions of their games, due to the massive amount of players who still play on the best selling console of the 8th gen console.
I am not sure what is worse about the dialogue in Solasta: Crown of the Magister’s developer-made campaigns: the terrible dialogue, awful delivery, lacklustre voice acting, or excessive profanity, which, when combined, makes following the narrative very difficult, especially when you consider that there is no real voice modifier beyond gender and a female elf will basically sound the same as a female orc, or female dragon.
In addition, much of the dialogue feels like it was written by an amateur DnD group, albeit one with a penchant for profanity, which at times can result in sentences which are almost entirely comprised of crass words, bad jokes, and stale tropes, with little else of value added.
The start of the first campaign is particularly bad in this regard, as four characters with poor animations and lacklustre voice-acting performances sit around cussing and discussing ale that tastes like donkey urine (albeit with a less polite word for it!).
While this is less of an issue for players who prefer to play with custom campaigns, for those who prefer the singleplayer content, the terrible dialogue and acting frequently break immersion. Honestly, after a while, I just wanted to skip it all, which in turn made me lose all interest in the campaign altogether.
While Solasta: Crown of the Magister plays very well on PC and works well with a mouse and keyboard, it does not play well with a controller and left me feeling like I was forced to wrestle with the controller to perform anything beyond basic map navigation.
I must admit, after playing Pathfinder and Baldur’s Gate 3, that I find the combat system in Solasta: Crown of the Magister to be rather unrefined; however, it does allow for a lot of creativity and in a world where better systems did not exist, I would have no issue with the combat system found in Solasta: Crown of the Magister, but after playing better systems, going back to Solasta: Crown of the Magister does feel like taking a step back 20 years, albeit with better visuals and slightly better animations.
Games based on Dungeons and Dragons are always controversial, and some people will not touch them with a barge poll due to the content contained within.
Honestly, I can respect their reluctance to play games that contain mature or dark subject matter if they feel it would cause them to stumble; however, I personally feel that games that offer the ability for players to choose between good and evil are fantastic, as it mirrors the choices we face in the real world, and for players who play their characters in accordance with their real-world beliefs, no role-playing game needs be any more dangerous or damaging to their spiritual health than a trip to Walmart.
That being said, I do not feel players are free to indulge their darker passions, as while yes it is just a game, it does show a spiritual issue with the player if they always seek to do things which are dark, profane, or in some cases downright kinky (like Baldurs Gate 3’s “sex with a bear scene”).
Now, I know some of you will read this and say that it is only pretend and engaging in sexual or occultic content in a game does not affect the real world. However, God disagrees with you and Jesus had this to say about people who engage in lustful fantasies.
This verse shows us that even thinking about committing sinful acts, with a desire to do them, is counted as doing the sin, as the person thinking would commit that sin if they had the chance to do so.
If you cannot play a Dungeons and Dragons game without your character continually engaging in depraved or occultic actions, then I strongly suggest you avoid them altogether; however, if you can play them without becoming obsessed with the darker aspects of the game (and allowing them to define your entire character), then honestly I see no issue, as free will is very important to God, so important that he was willing to send his only son (Jesus Christ) to die, to ensure we had the freedom to chose to follow him or not, instead of forcing our love and obedience.
That being said, while we are free to choose to live without him and not accept his gift of salvation, it does not mean that we will not ultimately pay the price for our sins, as while it’s not cool, popular or correct to say it, Jesus is the only way to God, and without him, no man or woman can be saved.
Solasta: Crown of the Magister is a role playing game video game developed and published by Tactical Adventures, it was released on 27 May 2021 and retails for $29.99.
Solasta: Crown of the Magister is available on the following platforms: PC, Playstation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
Solasta: Crown of the Magister supports:
Please be aware that cross-platform play only exists between Steam, Xbox PC App, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S, while the PS5 version does not offer crossplay support. According to the developer’s statement on the official website, the developers were unable or unwilling to meet Sony’s requirements for enabling crossplay support on Solasta: Crown of the Magister.
While this is disappointing, hopefully, full crossplay support will be enabled in future, allowing the entire Solasta: Crown of the Magister community to play together.
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Solasta: Crown of the Magister is rated PEGI 16+ and contains the following:
I like Solasta: Crown of the Magister, despite it very much feels like an off-brand Baldurs Gate III; while it is a little rough around the edges, its unique plot, interesting mechanics, decent visuals, the ability to create custom campaigns, and its toned down sexual content (compared to Baldurs Gate III) makes it a very palatable CRPG, and one that is sure to please fans of the genre, who have been eager to play a high quality, highly customisable CRPG for some time.
