Alas, poor MAG, I hardly knew yee.

I see, weary traveler, that you have come to this place of knowledge for a large multiplayer FPS experience. But alas, you are too late.

I was like you once, stranger. I too, desired a unique multiplayer experience, but I could not afford to maintain both an Xbox and a Playstation console at the same time. When a strong price drop finally came, I purchased my PS3, but my hopes of 256-person battles were dashed.

I fear that the Dark Lord of the Gaming Industry: "Poor Sales", doomed this game to the realm of oblivion. When the Dark Lord convinced Sony Entertainment to shut down the servers that access the land of MAG, the road to this magical world of 256-person battles was closed forever. For without servers to support it, MAG remains nothing more than an impassible menu screen; a locked gate to a land that is now made up of only memories.

If access to these memories is imperative for you, the mage "Gerstmann" created a moving picture series that may allow you to share in his experiences with this now quiet land. You may find it in the videos section, under the words "MAG thing".

Stay as long as you wish traveler, but death makes no amends for it's actions. Perhaps if you stay long enough you may hear a distant gunshot carried by the wind, or the glint of a shell casing, shining in the darkness.

MAG

1/26/2010 - 1/28/2014

Wow! DIdn't realize it's been over 4 years since it's release.

I'm sure I'm in the minority when saying this, but MAG was my favorite online game of the most recent generation of hardware. The massive battles, which I'm sure is something that's been done on PC already, were new to me and was an absolute blast.

Now if only Zipper didn't completely screw up Socom...

I can't believe this game is only 4 years old. I remember a friend talking about getting this, and that feels like yeeears ago.

@steadyingmeat:
It's not just that it was 4 years old. It was barely 4 years old. Four years, and two days.

@mightyduck:

The massive battles weren't new, but the number itself (256) was pretty new. Honestly, from a lot of the descriptions I read I think they spent so much time building the levels in a way that would work for shooters, they forgot the crazy chaos that a massive battle that big could have at a central point. A lot of the reviews mentioned that it never really felt like 128 v. 128 except in rare special events.

Of those who us who had actually played the game, I think most of us hold it as a favorite. I think it captured the feeling of Battlefield 2 better than Battlefield 3 and 4 did.

I played it until the final week before the closure, but I never got to play on the Valor faction. :(

Just for the hell of it, here are video embeds of the MAG videos GB did, because there is a video embed feature on this site. The game was changed quite a bit from launch though, with an entirely different progression system in the last three years.:

Whatever you've been smoking I want some.

@falserelic:

Everyone keeps telling me that, but no one believes me when I tell them I'm not high!

@mchampton:
Fixed, thanks!

I'm amazed that this game found a fanbase big enough to even last 4 years. The shooting never felt right for some reason but I remember having some awesome moments with the game, like rushing the sawmill with dozens of team mates while a good 30 to 60 people in the tower tried to mow us down with a hail of bullets. The 250 player games were terrible though, I couldn't move 10 feet without someone gunning me down.

I loved MAG!

I never played MAG, but it sounded interesting until I watched Jeff playing. He's normally a pretty competent player, better than me, anyway, and total lack of success really turned me off the idea.

@mightyduck: Maaaaan SOCOM could have thrived on PS3 and now PS4. But Zipper had to go run it into the ground. It's such a shame. Some of the best memories I have are from SOCOM 2 & 3. Those games were awesome.

Hopefully that H-Hour game will turn out decent.

MAG was fun man... played it for a good 60-70 hrs, the massive 256 player battles were fantastic in my opinion, so I got my moneys worth out of it at least.

Fun fact, it was MAG thing that first brought me to giant bomb, was looking for gameplay video in order to decide whether to buy it or not, and lo and behold, here's 2 dudes playing it for like an hour, loved the video and never left ever since.

It got 4 years; that's more than enough for a niche offshoot of the shooter genre. Too bad this is a consistent reality though.