The Elder Scrolls: Legends
| Basic Information | |
|---|---|
| Release Year | 2017 |
| Product Type | Video Games |
| In Production | No |
| Official Website | |
The Elder Scrolls: Legends (or TES: Legends) was an online collectible card game (CCG) published by Bethesda Softworks, inspired by the company's Elder Scrolls franchise. The game was developed by Dire Wolf Digital before its development was later handed off to Sparkypants Studios, a small studio based in Baltimore, Maryland, in 2018.[1][2][3]
TES: Legends was released in open beta in April of 2016, and had its official release a year later.[4] While often compared as a competitor to Blizzard Entertainment's far more popular CCG Hearthstone, TES: Legends suffered from poor marketing by Bethesda in its time online. Despite this, it built a dedicated following in its first four years online.
Consumer-impact summary
[edit | edit source]User Freedom
[edit | edit source]Due to the shutdown of public servers by Bethesda Softworks after 2025, players who purchased in-game cards and expansions are unable to use these purchased items again.[5][6] No means of play, even an offline single player mode, was made available to consumers.
Business Model
[edit | edit source]The Elder Scrolls: Legends was marketed fairly poorly by Bethesda, and faced development issues throughout its time online.[7] As a result, the game found difficulty thriving in a market already saturated with online CCGs, culminating in the game's discontinuation.[8]
Incidents
[edit | edit source]This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents related to this product. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the The Elder Scrolls: Legends category.
Developer transition to Sparkypants Studios (May 2018)
[edit | edit source]Announcement
[edit | edit source]On May 31st, 2018, TES: Legends community manager Christian Van Hoose announced in a Reddit post that Bethesda would be handing off further development of the game from Dire Wolf Digital to Sparkypants Studios.[2] The change was purportedly made with the aim of dedicating more attention to the game's development, with Van Hoose writing:
This change is also a commitment from us at Bethesda to better support the game with regular updates, new features, competitive scene support and the other requests from our fans. We have heard your requests and believe this is the best path to continue improving the game.[2]
New client development, reactions, and aftermath
[edit | edit source]At E3 2018, Bethesda announced that TES: Legends would be coming to the XBOX One, Playstation 4, and Nintendo Switch consoles. However, the bigger announcement for the game was the reveal of a new "client" developed by Sparkypants Studios.[9] The new look featured new menus, playmats, and card frames.
When the new TES: Legends client was first released in September 2018, players were met with game-breaking bugs, and had mixed reactions to the new look and feel of the game. In an official statement posted to Reddit, community manager Christian Van Hoose wrote in response to the backlash:
We know many of you have expressed varying levels of frustration and dissatisfaction over Legends’ recent client refresh. Our teams are actively listening, monitoring, and tracking all feedback, issues, and bugs, including missing sounds from cards, choppy animations, card interactions, bugged daily quests, incorrect art, and more. Development on Patch 1 is well under way and includes more than 100 fixes...
In terms of the look and feel of the game, this refresh is by no means complete. It was never our intention to roll out Sparkypants’ new client and call it a day. We’re committed to making Legends a game you – and we – are proud of...we will continue to address issues like the overall feel of the game, card mechanics, and UI flow. So please keep sending us your feedback and comments – we are listening!
Although Bethesda had noted a month after the development transition that Sparkypants was also tasked with rebuilding the backend logic for the game from the ground up,[10] the marketing for the changes was nonetheless heavily skewed toward them just affecting the look of the game (a new client). This caused a disconnect between player expectations and the reality of the task that Sparkypants was up against. In a January 2025 interview with TES: Legends creator ianbits, Sparkypants developer Jason Coleman explained:
[I]t was referred to as a "client" refresh but it was, in reality, a complete rewrite of the client, servers, and everything in between. There is no code or non-raw assets shared between the original Direwolf version and ours. And, contrary to some speculation, partly born out of player frustration, we are actually a very experienced team. It's just brutal to make a full game like TESL in less than a year, even with some of us working virtually around the clock. It's not unusual for it to take 9-12 months just to get a game like TESL fully ready to ship once it feels complete. Let alone make the entire thing from scratch and ship it live to existing players...
It was painful to ship something that wasn't great from the start. A significant low point for me was the team having worked that hard to pull off what was something of a miracle but players were still rightfully unhappy. All that said, I'm proud of the quality we ended up with (other than maybe not being able to complete the card sets like we intended). And I'm glad we were all able to keep it going even in maintenance mode for as long as we did. I wish it could continue forever.[11]
Halt of further development (Dec 2019)
[edit | edit source]In December 2019, community manager Christian Van Hoose announced in a Reddit post that any and all new content for TES: Legends would be put indefinitely on hold.[12] The game would continue to be maintained, with online play, single-player mode, recurring in-game events, and monthly rewards all remaining active. However, new in-game content would not be a possibility until further notice. Coinciding with the announcement was the release of the game's Tamriel Collection expansion, gifted to players for free the next time they logged in.
Server shutdown (Nov 2024-Jan 2025)
[edit | edit source]
On November 1st of 2024, players opened the game and were met with a message from Bethesda letting them know that all TES: Legends servers would be shut down on the 30th of January 2025. The message also let them know that all cards in the game had been discounted to one unit of the game's in-game currency to facilitate an experience free of all player friction until the shutdown.[8]
Bethesda confirmed that servers had been shut down on January 30th, 2025.[5] No alternative means of online play, nor offline or single-player play, were made available to players on the day the servers were shut down.
See also
[edit | edit source]References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ "A Legend Continues". DIREWOLF. 31 May 2018. Archived from the original on 20 Sep 2026. Retrieved 20 Sep 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Christian Van Hoose (31 May 2018). "The Elder Scrolls: Legends Finds a New Home". Reddit. Archived from the original on 20 Sep 2026. Retrieved 20 Sep 2026.
- ↑ Craig Chapple (31 May 2018). "Bethesda swaps The Elder Scrolls: Legends developer Dire Wolf with Sparkypants". PocketGamer.biz. Archived from the original on 20 Sep 2026. Retrieved 20 Sep 2026.
- ↑ "What Is The Elder Scrolls: Legends?". Bethesda. 21 April 2016. Archived from the original on 20 Sep 2026. Retrieved 20 Sep 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Update on The Elder Scrolls: Legends - January 2025". Bethesda. 30 January 2025. Archived from the original on 20 Sep 2026. Retrieved 20 Sep 2026.
- ↑ "As Elder Scrolls: Legends shuts down, a mod delivers the perfect dedication to the rampers, aggros, mids, late gamers, invaders, ropers, comboers, and everyone else who loved it: 'Whoever you are: You are Legends'". Bethesda. 30 January 2025. Archived from the original on 20 Sep 2026. Retrieved 20 Sep 2026.
- ↑ Andy Chalk (27 Sep 2018). "Bethesda responds to player anger over new Elder Scrolls: Legends client". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on 20 Sep 2026. Retrieved 20 Sep 2026.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Edward Fargis (4 Nov 2024). "Elder Scrolls Legends Will Be Delisted in 2025 For Low Player Count". Yardbarker. Archived from the original on 20 Sep 2026. Retrieved 20 Sep 2026.
- ↑ Andy Chalk (10 June 2018). "The Elder Scrolls: Legends – New client and console support announced". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on 20 Sep 2026. Retrieved 20 Sep 2026.
- ↑ "Sparkypants Interview". Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages. 31 July 2018. Archived from the original on 20 Sep 2026. Retrieved 20 Sep 2026.
- ↑ ianbits (30 Jan 2025). "Sparkypants Interview". Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages. Archived from the original on 20 Sep 2026. Retrieved 20 Sep 2026.
- ↑ Christian Van Hoose (6 Dec 2019). "An Update on The Elder Scrolls: Legends". Reddit. Archived from the original on 21 Sep 2026. Retrieved 21 Sep 2026.