It looks like another great digital card game, The Elder Scrolls: Legends, has been axed by Bethesda. Community Manager, CVH, had this to say about the state of the game.
- TESL is no longer under development
- They will still support the game with in-game events and monthly rewards
- Loads of new free cards on login (which I can assume were from the next expansion)
Quote From CVH 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.
Developer Sparkypants also shared the following about their departure from TESL.
Quote From Sparkypants To all our fans,
As you may have already heard, Bethesda has shared news regarding future content for The Elder Scrolls: Legends. From the moment we were given the privilege to work on the game we have been nothing short of obsessed with making it the best it possibly could be. Completely rebuilding a pre-existing title from scratch under deadline with a new client, game server, and backend was no easy feat, with every system, gameplay nuance, animation, and visual effect having to be recreated. The result was a mad dash to initial release that was decidedly rough, but we, along with Bethesda, loved the game, wanted it to continue, and had been working heads down on a shared vision we hoped to bring to all Legends players.
Over these last 18 months the connection we experienced from the Legends community has been wonderfully uplifting. You supported us through every release and some significant bumps in the road. You challenged us when we missed the mark and that helped us to learn and grow. Nothing was more enjoyable than seeing your excitement from each expansion, feature addition, and requested quality of life change. You put a smile on our collective face every time with your kind words and passion. Truly we couldn't have asked for a better fan base. We love you.
Moving forward it is up to Bethesda to decide the shape of ongoing support for Legends. Most questions should now be directed to CVH or Customer Service. As far as the Asian version goes, while it is being built on our reworked version of Legends we've not been directly involved beyond the very occasional consultation. But we're excited to see where they take it! With that said, please know that we are still around. Some of us have moved on to other endeavors, but a core of us are still here, always open to a quick chat. <3
Thank you again from the bottom of our hearts and to Bethesda for being a great partner. It's been a heck of a time.
All the best,
The Sparkypants Team
Comments
I played it for a bit, but the learning curve was a bit too much. I had a few fun games until someone beat me by playing a minion that seemed crazy OP. I think it was something like a 12/12, had 'can't be targeted by spells' and didn't even cost max mana to play. I'm sure experienced players could mention multiple ways to counter that, but I couldn't think of anything from the limited cards I had to start with. If it was the only CCG online at the time, I probably would have kept playing to figure it out, but I was already invested in HS. New CCGs have a lot of competition, so they need to have a compelling hook and a good experience for new players. If there are cards that can crush a player like that, the game should do a better job of communicating how to deal with it.
But now I'm more burned out on HS and really looking forward to Legends of Runeterra. I know there are some cards that look OP, but the dynamic turn system and blockers sound like really clever ways to counter powerful cards. I really hope people give it a chance. Plus, Riot seems to be counting on cosmetics to make money instead of selling card packs, which sounds like a refreshing change for the CCG.
Amazing how bethesda shafted this game instead of 76.
I've played this game since beta. To be honest, this game was really good, and, a few months ago, compared to others ccg, I felt it was the better game. But everyone makes mistakes, and Beth did. They never really invested in promoting the game or its scene. Add to this a bad design team (especially the last expansion) and you had the recipe for a disaster. I lost interest in the game a few weeks ago, (to make a parallel to HS, imagine the tomb of terror meta but worse) but I still had hope for this game. They kind of milked it to the end and thus I'm feeling a little salty although I didn't have any problems getting anything I needed as a f2p : it just rubs me the wrong way for all the new players that invested money lately.
In the end, I had good times with a game that, in its early stage, was everything I feel HS should be: a card game in which all your decisions really mattered.
Farewell.
I’d say one of the things that lead to it not doing better than Hearthstone was the aesthetic of it. It’s the same problem as when I try playing other cards games, they’re never that visually appealing. Hearthstone’s appeal is both that it’s not overly complicated like some games, but also that it’s really nice to look at. Whereas any time I’ve tried to play Eternal, or Arena, or Legends, I enjoy the games, but they always look really messy and a bit ugly comparatively.
Every now and then you’ll see people complaining about how childish all the artwork is for Hearthstone, and that these other games try to look much more mature, but to a lot of people the artwork of hearthstone looks really nice alongside the aesthetic of the boards and the menus
I agree, the simplistic and flavourful nature of Hearthstone is very appealing. Every single card (almost) shares the same art style, meaning even if the card comes from an entirely different theme (say, Rastakhan's Rumble vs. Boomsday Project), the cards still look similar and don't feel out of place. Hearthstone has somehow made a foundation for their cards' art that wonderfully mixes with anything no matter what. On the other hand, if you were to look at MtG, most cards (like Casualties of War, Questing Beast, The Great Henge, Vraska Golgari Queen, Teferi Hero of Dominaria) have gorgeous art. But then you see some cards whose art doesn't feel fitting (like Cauldron Familiar, WotS Ajani's Pridemate, Duress) or downright horrifying (like Child of Night, Drill Bit, Nightmare's Thirst, Thought Distortion). Other CCGs may not have this problem, but my perspective for card art is limited to MtG and Hearthstone for the most part.
"Oooo, Elder Scrolls card game! Neat!" Is what I thought to myself till I reread the headline. Maybe marketing was an issue since I played a bunch of card games and didn't even know this existed.
Well at least the meta will never change now.
Never played it, but still sad to see it shut down. The more competition HS has, the better it will become.
F
Rumor has it that the devs were moved to work on another Skyrim port.
hahah, they will release skyrim on every platform until there are only fridges we can play it on...
They better release TES:VI and make it work optimal so we can play it even without mods.
I m still playing it, really good HS clone, yes, this card game obviously HS clone, but it has so much more over HS, like cool mechanics and other stuff, also, solo arena fun thing and rewarding also ok. I think, community not big enough for future of this game, but i will play it until death.
Oh, also, art is so much better than HS, i love it, but animations is meh, but i think it's coz of it just 1gb on mobile not 3gb like hs.
I played it quite a lot when the game got released. It felt so much more "mature" (though I have grown up in Warcraft universe) and complicated than HS because of its art and gameplay. Especially arena felt more difficult and more interesting than HS, but still new expansion of HS (don't remember which) killed the game for me. The simpleness of HS brings me always back from other card games.
I never heard of it so I'm not too heartbroken but it is a bit sad to see one go.
Don't hate me, but it was kinda obvious they were after a quick buck. First expansion, skyrim. Second one, morrowind. Third one, oblivion. Nostalgia expansions rolled out, nothing left to develop afterwards.
I'm sure there will be so much mechanics and lore they can add. That's about making money. Not about creativity sadly.
Even I can make custom cards for Legends. So, I'm sure they also have more thoughts.
Another one bites the dust.
Dont get me wrong, ive played it and it seems very good in a universe loved by many including me, The Elder Scrolls, but at the end of the day HS just has the monopoly. the only reason Magic is doing well is cause it has the cult following from the 90's and is all around a great game with players joining the ranks from the paper version.
LoR is the ultimate contender, if they cant hack it then im afraid nobody will in the digital card game industry as long as HS is around. Mainly cause ppl are attached to their collections and the time/money they invested in so no way they are dropping everything. card games are close to full time games, u cant exactly play other games unless u drop it entirely.
btw, in my opinion, MTG:A caused legends to fall, not Hearthstone.
Hearthstone was there before Legends released. People who bored to play Hearthstone moved Gwent, Legends etc. And then former leader of the card-game market came to the digital area. People who formerly left playing (or should i say "supporting the company with their money"?) Hearthstone to play other games moved to MTG:A by leaving Gwent, Legends, Shaowverse etc.
I'm seeing this situation like this really.
yeah i agree with that. but im also stating how HS is locking the success of others cause many potential customers wont leave HS now, as opposed to a time when there would be no HS
I don't think Hearthstone is supreme. People tend to not leave stuff which they spend tons of money also There are some bindings with the game in years. Time is so important, When some games are released 3 years before their rivals, That's really so important because People binds their feelings to the game.
Blizzard won the card-game market not because the game is supreme, They won it because;
1-) Game is easy to learn - hard to be a pro (That's the classical motto of the Blizzard already which they use the term for all of their games)
2-) They released the game so early. Pokemon TCG:O was around but you've needed to play that game by buying physical booster packs in order to play competitively and/or just in order to play because trading cards and rewarding system was thrash. Same with Magic Online. You've needed physical cards, lots of money etc.
3-) They brought their own fans to the card games market which might be their trouble in next year with Legends of Runeterra. People normally are not interested in card games started to like card games because of Hearthstone just because they like Warcraft. It will happen again with Legends of Runeterra in my opinion. That's really so important because it doesn't spare market, it just adds more customers to it.
I'm not trying to be a Doomsayer. Hearthstone might not lose so much with LoR's release but that's obvious Riot will bring new players to card-games market. Not just steal others' playerbase. Honestly, They might not need to steal becaue of their fanbase + language support + support team.
I have joined so many streams in preview times of Legends of Runeterra in twitch. Most of them were people who didn't ever played card games and started to be interested in just because of it is League of Legends' card game and people who were in chat were also like that. The amount was really so high. So I suggest people to not underestimate the power of the fan-bases.
Riot wants to do what Blizzard did with Hearthstone. Let's see they will be able to or not.