The Mage's Tale

The Mage's Tale
Information
VR/AR	Virtual Reality
Developer	inXile Entertainment
Publisher	inXile Entertainment
Platform	Oculus Rift (Platform), SteamVR, PlayStation 4
Device	Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR
Operating System	Microsoft Windows
Type	Game
Genre	RPG, Dungeon Crawler, Action
Input Device	Oculus Touch, Tracked motion controllers, PlayStation Move
Game Mode	Single-player
Release Date	20 June 2017 (Oculus Rift); 23 March 2018 (Steam); 5 February 2019 (PlayStation VR)
Price	US$39.99 at launch on the Oculus Store; US$29.99 at launch on PlayStation VR; US$29.99 list price on Steam (October 2026)
App Store	Oculus Store, Steam, PlayStation Store
Website	https://inxile-entertainment.com/games/the-mages-tale

See also: VR Apps and VR Games

The Mage's Tale is a first-person virtual reality dungeon crawler role-playing game developed and published by inXile Entertainment. It is set in the world of the studio's The Bard's Tale series, between The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate and The Bard's Tale IV, and casts the player as an apprentice mage who must rescue a kidnapped master by fighting through ten dungeons with hand-cast spells. It was inXile's first virtual reality title.

The game launched on 20 June 2017 as an Oculus Rift exclusive that required Oculus Touch controllers. Publishing support from Oculus Studios let inXile hire a dedicated team for it. It came to Steam on 23 March 2018, which made it playable on the HTC Vive for the first time, and to PlayStation VR on 5 February 2019. PC Gamer described it as one of the Rift's longer games, with a campaign of over 10 hours, and it was a finalist for VR Game of the Year at the 2018 VR Awards.

Reviewed 4 October 2026. Release dates, prices, platforms, development and Kickstarter funding statements, gameplay details, review scores and quotes, aggregator scores and the 2018 VR Awards finalist status checked against the cited sources. About review dates.

Gameplay

The corrupt wizard Gaufroi has kidnapped the player's master, Mage Alguin. To rescue him, the apprentice explores ten dungeons, among them the sewers of Skara Brae, solving puzzles, avoiding traps and fighting monsters along the way. Road to VR described the quest as a search for Alguin's fellow mages, with a looted chest waiting at the end of each dungeon. Unlike the party-based Bard's Tale games, the player controls a single mage and fights alone in real time. A goblin familiar comments on puzzle rooms and gives hints, and talking wall monsters pose riddles; puzzles include fetching missing parts, cranking machines and freezing water in pipes.

Combat and spellcrafting

Combat is mostly ranged. The player selects one of four elemental spells and throws it with a hand motion at an enemy picked out by a head-tracked crosshair, which PC Gamer described as a soft lock-on to whatever the player is looking at. An arcane shield reflects incoming arrows and enemy magic. There are no melee weapons and no dual-wielding. Enemy types include archers, mages, shielded goblins and hammer-wielding giants, and each dungeon ends in a boss fight.

Spells are made in the Mage's Workshop by combining ingredients in a cauldron. Base ingredients set the element (fire, lightning, ice or wind), and modifiers such as poison, faster recharge or triple shot change how a spell behaves. Road to VR counted more than two dozen ingredients and over 100 combinations, found by trial and error. inXile's lead designer David Rogers wrote that the game has no traditional HUD: information is shown through in-world objects such as spell books, crafting tables and gems set into the player's gloves. On leveling up, the player picks one of two permanent upgrades, for example extra health or faster spell recharge. Objects out of reach can be pulled in with a "force grab" that is aimed by pointing a finger.

Locomotion

At launch on the Rift, the player could move one square at a time with the left analog stick or point and teleport further. Snap turning was included so that players with a two-sensor Rift setup could keep their controllers tracked. Road to VR noted the absence of smooth movement and smooth turning in its launch review. Later updates added free locomotion, and the Steam release shipped with smooth movement. The PlayStation VR version offers several step and smooth movement settings as well as teleportation.

Development

inXile announced The Mage's Tale on 24 February 2017 as a VR title for Oculus Touch. In a Kickstarter update to backers of The Bard's Tale IV, inXile CEO Brian Fargo wrote that the project had helped the company's New Orleans studio grow, that Oculus Studios' publishing let inXile hire a team for The Mage's Tale without affecting the team on The Bard's Tale IV, and that none of the crowdfunding money went into The Mage's Tale. Both games were built on Unreal Engine 4. Fargo wrote that environments, models, textures, animations and other graphical assets made for The Mage's Tale were being reused in The Bard's Tale IV, while the two games' designs remained separate. In the Oculus launch post, inXile president Matthew Findley said that no project was made exclusively at either the Newport Beach or the New Orleans studio and that the two had learned to work as one team.

In UploadVR's announcement coverage, David Jagneaux wrote that the game stylistically recalled Ultima, Wizardry, Might & Magic and the first two Elder Scrolls games. When announcing the release date, Fargo said: "Our goal was to use the old school tried and true methods of game design and integrate that with everything that Virtual Reality offers. We wanted to get away from the VR 'experience' and create the kind of meaty and full-scale game that gamers appreciate." Findley said that working in VR gave the studio a platform to experiment with binaural and 3D spatial audio. inXile's PlayStation VR press release states that the score was produced and composed by Ged Grimes of Simple Minds.

After the Rift launch, inXile kept updating the game, adding free locomotion and a horde mode. According to Road to VR, Fargo said on social media at launch that the game would come to other VR platforms within 12 months. On 10 November 2018, before the PlayStation VR release, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire inXile for Microsoft Studios.

Release

inXile revealed the 20 June 2017 release date on 1 June 2017 and opened pre-orders on the Oculus Store at ten percent off the regular US$40 price. The game launched on 20 June 2017 for Oculus Rift with Touch at US$39.99.

The Steam edition was released on 23 March 2018. It supports the Rift natively and was the first version playable on the HTC Vive. inXile said this edition included smooth movement, a horde mode and optimized performance. In March 2018 inXile also confirmed to UploadVR that a PlayStation VR version was in development. It was released on 5 February 2019 at US$29.99. Road to VR attributed the requirement for PlayStation Move controllers to the game's heavy use of object interaction; UploadVR noted that two Move controllers are needed. UploadVR's review of this version noted that it launched with free movement options and the Arena mode, which the original Rift release had lacked. inXile's launch press release said a post-launch PlayStation 4 Pro enhancement patch was planned.

Platform	Store	Release date	Price	Notes
Oculus Rift	Oculus Store	20 June 2017	US$39.99 at launch	Requires Oculus Touch
Microsoft Windows (SteamVR and Oculus PC)	Steam	23 March 2018	US$29.99 (list price, October 2026)	First release for the HTC Vive
PlayStation VR (PlayStation 4)	PlayStation Store	5 February 2019	US$29.99 at launch	Requires two PlayStation Move controllers

As of October 2026 the game is still sold on Steam, where it is listed as a single-player, VR-only title with tracked controller support and a regular price of US$29.99. Its minimum PC specification is an Intel i5-4590 or AMD FX 8350 processor, 8 GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290 graphics card.

Reception

Publication or aggregator	Version	Score
Metacritic	PC	72/100 (12 critic reviews)
Metacritic	PlayStation 4	69/100 (11 critic reviews)
OpenCritic	All	Top Critic Average 69; 29% of critics recommend
Road to VR	Oculus Rift	7/10
Destructoid	PC (Oculus Rift)	6/10
GameSpot	Not stated	4/10
PlayStation Universe	PlayStation VR	7.5/10

Metacritic classifies the PC reviews as "mixed or average". Reviewing the Rift version for UploadVR, David Jagneaux called it "one of the best examples of how to take a tried-and-true existing gaming genre and adapt it for the new VR medium" and estimated about an hour per dungeon. He criticized fiddly controls when picking ingredients for the cauldron and some unpolished interface elements. Tom Marks of PC Gamer wrote that it was "one of the first VR games I've played that feels like the full package", but described it as a light, action-oriented dungeon crawler whose leveling and puzzles lacked the depth of inXile's other role-playing games.

Road to VR's Scott Hayden scored it 7/10 (gameplay 7, immersion 6, comfort 8). He finished the campaign in a little over 7.5 hours and praised its puzzle variety and spellcrafting, but called the character animations clunky and the force grab "extremely fiddly". Chris Carter of Destructoid called it "an early experiment for VR RPGs" and said he never felt connected to its world. GameSpot's Daniel Starkey wrote that it "attempts to bring classic PC dungeon crawling into virtual reality, but disappoints".

For the PlayStation VR version, Eric Hauter of PlayStation Universe praised the humor, the puzzle design and the magic system, but found the image muddy and dark on a standard PlayStation 4 and picking items up from the floor awkward. At the VR Awards in October 2018, the game was a finalist for VR Game of the Year; the award went to The Gallery - Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone.