The upcoming action MMO Magic: Legends will never see the release. The game is set to be shut down again in October. That would only be 7 months after the start of the beta. There was still a lot of hype surrounding the announcement of the MMO.
What happened to the game? Magic: Legends was supposed to be an action MMO in the world of the famous card game Magic: The Gathering. The idea was to create a kind of Diablo game in which the cards and deck-building of Magic played a role.
The game launched in March 2021 in open beta. But already on October 31, 2021, just 7 months after the beta launch, the game is set to go offline again. It will never see an official release.
The lead developer Steve Ricossa said:
Our vision for Magic: Legends has missed the mark, but we are proud of what we achieved.
Is there a refund? Those who have invested money in the game can now request a refund. This applies to purchases made through the Epic Store as well as transactions via the Arc Games platform operated by the developer Cryptic.
In-game transactions will now only work with in-game currency.
Magic: Legends had serious problems even in beta
What caused the game to fail? When Magic: Legends was announced back then, the chances looked good that it would become a big hit:
- The Magic IP is extremely popular and well-known
- A new western MMORPG should finally come
- The developer Cryptic had already proven that they master this genre with the MMORPGs Neverwinter and Star Trek Online: After all, they have been successfully operating two titles on the market for years
However, many mistakes were made during the development. Initially, there was a shift from MMORPG to an action RPG in the style of Diablo and isometric perspective instead of 3D view. When the beta started, there were many complaints from players:
- Loading times were very long
- The tutorial was also unpopular as it dragged on
- Features like new classes were hidden behind a paywall, which had a hint of pay-to-win
- In general, the shop was heavily criticized for aggressively vying for players’ real money even in beta
Moreover, the game simply lacked hype from the beginning: The game just didn’t catch on with the gaming audience.
The developers actually wanted to address these issues, but apparently, in the end, too much was wrong to salvage anything.
This means that Magic: Legends now joins the ranks of dead games. To find out which games were hit last year, check out our special on 7 MMOs and online games that sadly died in 2020.
