Image Credit: Upper Deck Entertainment
Upper Deck Entertainment is known as a purveyor of trading cards, like sports memorabilia and Konami’s Yu-Gi-Oh! card game. It revolutionized the industry when it came out with premium quality baseball cards, and now it’s launching its first-ever digital card game, Legendary DXP.
It’s developed in partnership with SkyReacher Entertainment and will first debut on iOS at the tabletop gaming Gen Con event August 17. Later this year, Upper Deck plans to roll out to Android and Steam as well later this year.The digital card games market is expected to reach $1.4 billion this year, according to industry analyst SuperData. Blizzard’s Hearthstone, one of the most popular in the genre, is still raking in the cash after its 2014 launch, earning $25 million to $40 million per month and frequently releasing expansion packs. To grab a part of the market, Upper Deck is hoping to capture the interest of its long-time tabletop audience as well as the wider digital card games audience.
Legendary DXP will take the mechanics from Upper Deck’s Legendary lineup, a series of deck-building games where players face off against each other as well as in-game villains. Though its tabletop Legendary catalog features intellectual property such as Marvel’s X-men and Joss Whedon’s Firefly, Legendary DXP is set in Alamyth, a new fantasy world.
Senior brand manager Jason Brenner says that Legendary separates itself from the literal pack in that there are both competitive and co-operative aspects to it, and that it has a five-player mode known as the Gauntlet.
“The one difference is, a lot of competitive card games are two players. It’s me-versus-you, and that’s all there is,” said Brenner in a phone call. “Where Legendary shines is it brings five people together and—not only are these people playing against each other, but each player is also playing against the game.”
As players progress, they’ll combat minibosses and enemies together while building their individual decks. At the end, they have to face off against the Mastermind, a final boss who players…
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