It’s tough, and it definitely sucks for hardcore fans, but sometimes games just aren’t profitable and a company cannot justify spending money on development. This is usually true when projections for a game are pretty bad, and not showing any real growth. For online games, like the card game The Elder Scrolls: Legends, this is even worse. A small playerbase can make the game impossible to play, given that the core of the experience is the online segment.
And for Bethesda, it looks like that time has come. The free-to-play card game The Elder Scrolls: Legends has been out for two years and received four free expansions, adding new cards and other stuff. The developer even announced that there would be console ports on the way. Now, that the game has been effectively stripped of its team, that future is uncertain.
In an update posted to the the The Elder Scrolls: Legends subreddit, Bethesda made their plans for the future clear. Sadly, that doesn’t include more active updates for The Elder Scrolls: Legends. The company has put a pause on “active development” for the card game, as the playerbase likely isn’t sustainable. “Our previous roadmap indicated we would be releasing one more set this year. We decided to put any new content development or releases on hold for the foreseeable future,” it said. “This decision will not in any way affect the release and development of GAEA’s Asia-specific version of Legends, which is operated separately, but will inform our decisions on content and feature development going forward.”
This does not mean that the card game is shutting down, not yet. The Elder Scrolls: Legends will remain playable, and will continue to support all online play. So if you want to hop in for a last few games, as the ranked modes are still active. Players can also enjoy monthly reward cards and regular in-game events. There’s just no more content expansions or new cards coming to the game.
As a thank you for playing, Bethesda will give away The Tamriel Collection for free, which includes, “an assortment of new, three-attribute cards and more.” This will be unlocked upon every player’s next login to the game. So get in while you can, because it’s very likely that this game is going down entirely sooner rather than later.
In other Bethesda news, the company also announced a delay on the Switch port of The Elder Scrolls: Blades, sounds like a lot of projects are in flux right now.
The Elder Scrolls: Legends is out now for PC, iOS, and Android.
