Magic Legends taps out: PWE and Cryptic are shutting it down before it even fully launched

Bad news for fans of Magic Legends: PWE and Cryptic announced this afternoon that they’re sunsetting the game in October. Steve Ricossa broke the news to players on the official site today.

“It is with heavy hearts that we announce Magic: Legends will be shutting down on October 31, 2021. All players who spent money in-game across Arc and the Epic Games Store during the Open Beta will be refunded their full purchase amounts. Servers will remain open for play until closing day, however we will be closing the Zen Shop effective immediately. Later this week, all items will instead be purchasable using Aether, our free in-game currency. Our vision for Magic: Legends missed the mark, but we are proud of what we achieved. Thanks to Wizards of the Coast, we got to bring the expansive Magic: The Gathering Multiverse to a wide audience and explore new angles within the established ARPG genre. We learned several valuable lessons along the way, and we will use them to improve Cryptic’s future development efforts.”

Magic Legends was originally pitched to gamers in 2017 as a “free-to-play, action MMORPG” and a “next generation MMORPG,” but by last year, PWE had downgraded it to merely a multiplayer RPG, a move MMORPG players were naturally pretty peeved about. Delays and monetization woes plagued its initial open beta launch on PC; full launch and console launch had been planned for later this year. Most recently, players had lamented a lack of communication from the team and worried over a missing CM. Now, the last day for the game is October 31st, 2021, and it won’t be launching on console or Steam. The company is at least fully refunding players for all purchases (and then some).

“Yes there will be 100% refunds for all purchases, including both the Planeswalker Bundle and all Virtual Currency denominations. For purchases made through Arc Games using credit cards, refunds will be applied automatically to the respective credit card – we expect processing time of these refunds to take approximately 4 weeks. For purchases made through Arc Games using prepaid cards, refunds will be applied automatically in the form of Arc credit to the respective Arc account – plus an additional $10 credit – which can then be used within other games on the Arc client – we expect processing time of these refunds to take approximately 4 weeks. For purchases made through the Epic Games Store, refunds will be applied automatically via the pay gateway that was used to make purchases. Refunds are expected to process by July 14, but may take approximately 4 weeks to complete.”

The game was well-liked by our own Not So Massively columnist Tyler, though even he thought it needed a lot more work. Our sympathies extend to the rank-and-file developers and the players.

MMO players will recall that PWE’s other new game, Torchlight III, has suffered problems of its own; after similarly shifting from an MMORPG (Torchlight Frontiers) into a multiplayer-optional title, the game stumbled to launch last fall, and then Zynga bought out Echtra, the studio that had built the game for PWE, sending the game in-house. TL3, at least for now, is still up, albeit with low player pop, and just saw its spring update.

Magic: Legends is shutting down on October 31, 2021. Read the full statement and FAQ here > https://t.co/BMQZDHTWrU pic.twitter.com/6viue1Sbs6

— Magic: Legends (@BeAMagicLegend) June 29, 2021