Magin: The Rat Project Stories launches on PC and consoles in spring 2026, with a demo available now on Steam. Developed by The Rat Project and published by Daedalic Entertainment, this dark fantasy narrative deck-builder follows two characters bound by a fate neither suspects, set in a world where magic feeds directly on human desire and fear.
The card combat here is shaped by something most deck-builders leave on the table: how your characters feel. Essence, this world's term for magic, is tied to the desires and fears of its inhabitants, and that connection runs through every system. Your characters carry emotional states that influence both combat and exploration, meaning the choices you make in conversation and story don't just branch the narrative, they change what you're working with mechanically. Cards can be gained from story decisions and defeated enemies, and you can craft double-sided, emotion-infused essence cards that fit your strategy. The deck you carry into a fight is a product of who you've chosen to be. Managing emotions isn't a side system bolted onto the card game. It's the throughline connecting how you talk, how you fight, and where the story goes.
That emotional weight feeds into the game's larger preoccupation with control. This is a world where medieval culture is colliding with the invention of industrial, magic-powered machines, and powerful forces are scrambling to control them. Essence isn't just personal. It's a resource, a weapon, a thing worth fighting over. The tension between individual fear and institutional power runs through the setting, giving the card battles and branching decisions stakes beyond the immediate encounter.
Two protagonists carry that tension from different angles. Elester is a veteran Magin, a medium of the essence, working as a hitman for an underworld syndicate. He knows this world and its ugliness intimately. Tolen is young, only beginning to realize he can use essence too, providing a fresh perspective on the conflict Elester has long been embedded in. They have few things in common, but their fates are intertwined in ways neither understands at the outset. The story branches through difficult decisions with multiple endings, and the nonlinear structure means the path you carve for each character shapes the outcome.
Between battles, Magin plays as an adventure game. You explore atmospheric locations, investigate the environment, interact with items, and meet characters who might become allies or enemies. The world is populated with complex figures and horrible creatures, rendered through illustrated comic book sequences with full voice acting. The tone is cold and harsh, a fantasy setting that leans into grit rather than grandeur, where hope is something lost and fought to redeem rather than something guaranteed.
Magin: The Rat Project Stories builds its deck-builder around a simple idea that reaches into every corner of the game: magic costs something personal, and the emotions you carry change everything from the cards in your hand to the ending you reach.