When my friends want to play Magic: The Gathering, I wade through my two-dozen or so decks built for Commander -- the card game's casual, multiplayer format. I might choose the deck built around Elenda, the Dusk Rose, a vampire saint who can create legions of vampires. Maybe I'll take my Narset, Enlightened master deck, which lets me cast powerful spells for free when she attacks. Both Elenda and Narset are original characters from Magic: The Gathering.
Or maybe I'll grab my Lightning, Army of One deck, constructed around the Final Fantasy 13 character, so I can attack people for absurdly high amounts of damage. Maybe my Godzilla deck will engage in glorious combat against my friends' decks led by characters from Dracula or Warhammer 40K. Would Eowyn from Lord of the Rings be a better match-up against the forces of the Imperium?
It's a double-edged sword, this impulse toward crossovers. And it's happening in games far beyond Magic: The Gathering.
Overwatch featured skins from Persona 5 in September, Halo armor and weapons showed up in Helldivers 2, and edgy looter shooter Borderlands 4 is showing up in… golf game PGA Tour 2K25. The crossover crown lies eternally with Fortnite, thanks to its never-ending influx of skins from games, movies, comics and real-life celebrities -- leading players using the Sabrina Carpenter skin to stop shooting each other and, say, hold impromptu concerts instead.
When the elements fit each other are handled with care, it's a fun way for fans to engage with multiple interests simultaneously. But when it feels carelessly thrown-together or when the elements don't mesh, it can feel like a cash grab that hollows out the original property. And what works for one player might feel egregious or immersion-breaking to another.
The Stagger mechanic on Lightning's card is designed to mirror a mechanic from Final Fantasy 13. Wizards of the Coast/CNET
"Am I the problem?" I ask myself, as I work on a fourth Magic deck built around a Final Fantasy character, after spending hundreds of dollars on cards and accessories from the set.
I do realize that the money I spent on the release event and weekly drafts screamed to Hasbro, "It's working!" At the same time, playing with cards from that Final Fantasy set was also the most fun I've had with Magic in several years.
Corporations betting big on brand crossovers feels like the unavoidable consequence of a world in which players look more and more for customization and ways to show off their personalities and interests, which dovetails with companies looking for lucrative ways to attract new players and increase revenue in ongoing games. Is other media filtering into popular games about the joy of including familiar faces, or does it turn characters into digital bumper stickers, starved of their identity from their original context?
The answer, like it or not, is both.
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