Magic: Legends beta shutting down October 31st

Magic: Legends beta shutting down October 31st

Cryptic Studios’ Steve Ricossa announced the unexpected end for Magic: Legends today which launched in open beta just months ago in March. The free-to-play Action RPG remains available on publisher Perfect World’s Arc client as well as through the Epic Games Store but plans for PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam releases have been cancelled. The real-money Zen Shop has already been closed in-game and refunds will be automatically given to anyone who made purchases up to this point. The team’s full announcement follows:

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.

Most importantly, we’d like to thank all of the players who explored the Multiverse with us and provided feedback during the Alpha and Beta testing phases. We couldn’t have gotten this far without you!

Sincerely,
Steve Ricossa

An additional FAQ with a few specific answers is also provided but fans hoping for another chance to walk the planes in Cryptic’s interpretation of the Magic Multiverse will be dismayed by the closing statement, “at this time there are no plans to reinstate Magic: Legends in the future”. I’ve added the date to the Watch List calendar and will have a page up on the site for the game later this year.