Bethesda visited GameSpot to show some of its games in development, the last of which was Art of Magic: Magic & Mayhem II. Though the game is still in its early stages of design and will not be released until early 2001, the 3D game engine and basic gameplay structure suggest that Art of Magic has promise.

　　The original Magic & Mayhem was developed by Mythos Games, which created the famous X-COM: UFO Defense. Magic & Mayhem earned fairly good reviews, but it was a commercial failure. The game combined familiar real-time strategy and role-playing elements with a few new twists and unusual claymation graphics. The sequel to the game is being handled by British developer Charybdis, and it has abandoned the first game's weird look in favor of a fully 3D engine reminiscent of Bungie's Myth: The Fallen Lords. However, unlike in Myth, the characters in Art of Magic will also be 3D. The game's darkly comical graphic design is reminiscent of Bullfrog's Dungeon Keeper games.

　　As in the original, Art of Magic will let you play as a conjurer, and you'll assume that character's role over the entire course of the game. Your character can use reagents to create various spells and creatures of either good or evil alignment. You can focus your alchemy to produce more-powerful spells to make your character stronger, or to produce more powerful creatures so that you can assemble a vast army. Because you can readjust your strategy on the fly, multiplayer matches in Art of Magic will ideally be a lot more spontaneous than in a lot of other real-time strategy games. However, it is still too early in Art of Magic's development to tell if the game will succeed where the original fell short. Bethesda plans to show a more complete version of the game at the forthcoming E3 trade show in May.