Bethesda ceases active development on The Elder Scrolls: Legends

Which shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise given that most have you only just remembered it was a thing after reading that headline.

It seems the fate of nearly every card game based on an existing franchise to go down the drain in a post-Hearthstone world. What with Valve recently retracting the DOTA 2 card game Artefact for a total rework, I doubt that it would come as much of a surprise to anyone that Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls: Legends, based on the fantasy franchise of the same name, has officially been put on hold. While the game was announced all the way back in 2015 and later released in 2016, it’s not exactly the sort of experience that fans of The Elder Scrolls were looking for to bide time until the inevitable release of The Elder Scrolls 6, hence the cancellation of the project.

While all future developments have been put on hold, including the game’s upcoming expansion which was slated for release this quarter, The Elder Scrolls: Legends will remain playable and Bethesda will continue with monthly reward cards and in-game events, just don’t expect any substantial new content updates. The official statement posted on the game’s subbreddit reads:

We would like to provide an update on Legends in regard to new content. 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. 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.

Until then, you can still download and play Legends on all existing platforms and compete online as well as in the single-player modes. We will also continue to support the game with monthly reward cards and regular in-game events. New expansions and other future content, however, are no longer under active development. We will continue to provide ongoing maintenance support.

To thank you all for supporting Legends these past few years, and for continuing to play with us, we are giving away The Tamriel Collection – an assortment of new, three-attribute cards and more – to all players for free upon their next login. We are immensely grateful to work on The Elder Scrolls: Legends, to have you as a community, and we sincerely appreciate the love and support you’ve given us.

As can be expected, most of the comments are largely from fans of the game expressing their sadness that Legends has essentially been cancelled. The Elder Scrolls: Legends was expected to receive a console port in the near future, although the likelihood of that happening at all now is obviously incredibly slim. The game is still available for free on PC, iOS and Android systems.