RuneScape Legends – the competitive card game based on the award-winning RuneScape MMO, will leave open beta and launch in full on May 26, developer Jagex has announced. Not just a traditional card game in the same vein as Blizzard’s Hearthstone, Chronicle tasks players with playing cards that bestow buffs on their ‘Hero,’ which are encountered as they progress across the story book-inspired board. A few months back, I wrote about Chronicle: Runescape Legends, an upcoming cross-platform CCG that promises an interesting twist on the genre formula. runescape gold While the iOS version is still in the works with no release date yet, the PC version is coming along nicely and it’s giving us a taste of what’s to come on our mobile devices.

Card games seem to be everywhere right now, from the behemoths of the collectible card game genre like Hearthstone to the skeuomorphic notion of opening packs of cards in games like FIFA. In fact, I’d hesitate to bundle it in with the rest of the CCG genre, as to me it feels like more like a board game. Take a turn in Hearthstone and you’ll be using mana points to play cards from your hand, directing your minions in play to attack the opposing cards, and ultimately try to deal damage directly to your opponent.

Chronicle, turns this on its head, so that instead of battling your opponent directly, buy rs gold your hero is adventuring and fighting against the cards in your own deck. Each turn takes place across two pages in a magical tome, with environments and locations from the RuneScape universe popping into existence for you to adventure across. It borrows from the look and feel of a board game, so that while you and your opponent sit across from one another on the table, you’re represented in this game by figures on model bases.

Chronicle: RuneScape Legends sits somewhere between these two, fully justifying Jagex’ assertion that this is different to other CCGs. It really is more than lip service. We’d like to thank the many tens of thousands of cunning card tacticians who have helped us in open beta with feedback to refine the Chronicle’s unique CCG gameplay mechanics,” he continued. “For our existing open beta players, and anyone who signs up over the weekend, we’re offering up three free card packs so they can build their decks ready to take on new rivals at launch

Yesterday, the game went into open Beta on the PC, and you can go get a taste of the game (if you have a PC). As every quest chapter opens, a rich environment is revealed with four slots for card placement, each representing a step forward and action point in the adventure. In the role of their chosen Legend, players select up to four cards from their deck and place them in the landscape to lock in sequence. Decks can be a mix of Support and Enemy cards, each with an action and specific values.

In Chronicle, the cards are players’ greatest weapons and weaknesses. Like any great role playing game, players slay monsters, bosses and other foes to gain loot. Unlike other card games, players battle their own cards, not their opponents. Even if you aren’t interested in the PC version, you might still want to go and secure your display name before all the good ones (or silly ones) are taken. The open beta announcement came more or less on schedule, which is a good sign in terms of the game’s development rate. So, hopefully the game will come out soon on PC so the developers can focus on getting it our on mobile, too.