Witchfire devs reveal the true magic behind its punchy witch-hunting combat

Witchfire has been in development for over five years, and developer The Astronauts took to the Future Games Show Powered by the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro to pull back the curtain on an element of its combat that we were yet to see detailed in any great depth - the magic.

That's right, the new first-person shooter from former Bulletstorm devs will link its tightly-wound gunplay with light and heavy spells which distribute amongst the four core elements: air, earth, fire, and water.

Wishlist Witchfire on Epic now

In a new Witchfire trailer that debuted during the Spring Showcase, designer Karol Krok showed how these elemental attacks can intertwine. "Each element has its own unique property. For example, enemies set on fire receive more damage; on top of that, all elements interact with each other in intuitive ways."

You could, for example, attack an enemy with a 'shock' light spell, with both the damage and the element spreading to other nearby enemies. Should you set an enemy on fire – be it with a supercharged shotgun or a relevant spell – before casting 'shock' the chaining bolts will now deal more damage because the source enemy was burning, and subsequently "receiving more damage from my bullets."

Effectively using spells and weapons in tandem is key, The Astronauts says, to surviving the Land of the Witch – which is now a semi-open world, rather than the arena style which Witchfire was originally designed to support. Witchfire is set to launch into early access "soon" and will initially launch on the Epic Games Store.

If you’re looking for more excellent games from today's Future Games Show, have a look at our official Steam page.

Josh West is Editor-in-Chief of GamesRadar+. He has over 18 years of experience in both online and print journalism, and was awarded a BA (Hons) in Journalism and Feature Writing. Josh has contributed to world-leading gaming, entertainment, tech, music, and comics brands, including games™, Edge, Retro Gamer, SFX, 3D Artist, Metal Hammer, and Newsarama. In addition, Josh has edited and written books for Hachette and Scholastic, and worked across the Future Games Show as an Assistant Producer. He specializes in video games and entertainment coverage, and has provided expert comment for outlets like the BBC and ITV. In his spare time, Josh likes to play FPS games and RPGs, practice the bass guitar, and reminisce about the film and TV sets he worked on as a child actor.