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Others have brought up Dark Messiah which I think is a very decent rec.
Dragon Age Origins has some pretty powerful mages, but it might lack the physicality you're after.
For Bethesda games I think magic is much better in Morrowind and Oblivion than Skyrim
Also, this is a little niche but Dragons Dogma has some awesome mages. It'd a little punchier and more action oriented than most western RPGs.
Lastly, Guild Wars 2 has surprisingly fun combat for a decade old MMO and it's free.
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic? Lol it's and oldie but a goodie, that one will run for sure.
Looks interesting. Thanks for the recommendation!
Have you considered Enderal? It's a total conversion mod for Skyrim on steam, so the bones of it are the simpler Skyrim systems- but it overhauls everything and has excellent world building and quests to boot. A full mage playthrough/build is very fun/rewarding. Just understand that it is NOT Skyrim. It looks like it sometimes, and there's definitely still that Bethesda jank, but it's its own beast.
I wanted to avoid mods for now especially with skyrim since last time I've tried I've spent like 3 hours straight on nexusmods, only to run into conflicts and be too tired to even attempt to fix them. Although with a total conversion I assume it's all-in-one which should help avoid that problem. Thank you, will check it out!
Yes, the total conversion package makes it self-contained in the steam library/store. It just checks that you own a legit copy of Skyrim to run it. It has its own steam page even, couldn't be easier. Plus it's free (assuming you own any edition of Skyrim) so it's hard to pass up with so little risk aside from your time.
If you have the steam version of Skyrim it's very simple to get running.
https://store.steampowered.com/developer/SureAI/#browse has both versions (depending on if you have the launch version or special/anniversary edition). Also found here is Nehrim, their total conversion mod for Oblivion
I think part of the problem last time was that some of my mods were nexus and some were steam 😃 I guess I'm reinstalling Skyrim then. Thank you for the link!
Wabbajack is a mod organizer / installer that lets you load mod orders that have been configured by people who borderline make Mod Orders for a living. I cannot stress enough how much they took the thinking out of modding Bethesda games.
Pay for a 1 month sub to nexus mods and set the installer to run overnight.
This YouTube creator has published several quality videos what's going on in Wizard Games lately, which is a quick way to catch up on the genre: https://youtu.be/quPKQIVEX5A
I've played Bioshock 3 a long time ago and while fun, it isn't what I'm looking for in terms of magic. I've heard 1 and 2 are a bit more deep in this regard but afaik it's still mainly a shooter. I'm currently playing Dishonored 2 and Bioshock seems more similar to that than to Hogwarts.
Control was something I've wanted to play for a while, mostly because of SCP-inspired story, I didn't know anything about it's gameplay. Will 100% check it out.
Currently Noita is my magic game and Hogwarts was in part attempt for variety. I've seen Magicka on steam and I dunno why, but it didn't click for me.
Anyway, thank you very much for the recommendations!
Isles of Etherion? It's probably even more demanding though.
Two Worlds 2 had a very interesting idea for a magic system where you find cards and slot them to create and modify spells. It's pretty jank but maybe worth a look. The game also had one of the most interesting multiplayer setups for open world rpgs I've ever seen.
From a cursory glance the spell system looks like close to what I'm looking for. Thank you for the suggestion!
How could anything be simpler than skyrims magic?
Witcher magic, you literally have access to exactly five "spells".