Gamescom 2019 is kicking off officially this week in Germany and Wizards of the Coast even has some announcements to make. The company behind the beloved Magic: The Gathering card game announced an official partnership with Epic Games of Fortnite fame for MTG Arena moving forward. The new MTG Arena Epic Games deal likely has some worried, but it could be very beneficial for the game.

MTG Arena Epic Games Partnership Detailed

Like many other PC games out right now, this partnership includes putting the popular and ever-growing digital version of the card game on the Epic Games Store on PC in the future. Starting sometime this winter (no official release date was given), the card game will be available for download there.

Of course, the game will continue to be the free to play version that is right now in open beta on PC. In addition to that, the long-awaited release of MTG Arena Mac edition will be available for download for Mac users soon after the launch of the PC version on the Epic Games Store.

This comes as no surprise since the game is open beta right now on PC and has been for nearly a year now. Wizards of the Coast announced last year that the game would remain in open beta format until the full release of the game this year. Unfortunately, we still have no date for that at this time.

What This Partnership Could Mean for MTG Arena

However, this announcement of the Epic Games Store launch and the MTG Arena Mac version leads us to believe that the release date for the full game will be coming sometime this winter. In addition, this partnership could mean good things for the other versions of the game as well.

A mobile version of MTG Arena has long been rumored and hinted at, after all. Who better to help with that than Epic Games who knows a thing or two about making an online multiplayer game work well on mobile and other platforms?

This could even extend to potential console versions as the game would be a perfect match on the Nintendo Switch console where other card games are already available like Lightbringers and the upcoming release of The Elder Scrolls Legends.

MTG Arena Mac and PC Partnership Shouldn’t Concern Players

Of course, there are a lot of PC players who are concerned over games that have went over to the Epic Games Store exclusively and aren’t available on more experienced platforms like Steam. Thankfully, though, this partnership is only meant to offer more players access and not take away from existing players.

This move is solely to help out players who want the MTG Arena Mac version in the future to play on those computers. The best part is that the PC version that comes directly from Wizards of the Coast will still be able for download for free, in addition to the Epic Games Store version.

It will not affect gameplay or how your version will work either as you will still be able to continue playing just as you are now. If anything, this bodes well for the community to continue growing as more gamers will have easier access to the game than ever before.

That’s not the only announcement to come out of the Gamescom 2019 event for the game either. Players can begin downloading the official Companion App for MTG Arena that will be replacing the Portal app. This new app is in open beta currently and allows tournament organizers to organize various details easily.

Stay tuned for more updates as we learn more about the MTG Arena Epic Games partnership in the coming days.