The official announcement was made by the game’s executive producer, Steve Ricossa, who explains that the Diablo-like RPG title based on the Magic: The Gathering franchise “missed the mark”. He also added that the studio is no longer pushing through with its initial plans to release the game on other platforms. Finally, Steve clarified that full refunds will be given to everyone who spent any amount of money on Magic: Legends.
— Magic: Legends (@BeAMagicLegend) June 29, 2021
Magic: Legends Fails to Make it to Open Beta
As a game set in the Magic: The Gathering universe, Magic: Legends had a ton of potential. Unfortunately, it failed to live up to expectations. The most common complaints about Magic: Legends were related to its performance and its problematic in-game shop. Players also seemed to have issues with the game focusing too much on grinding. Having said that, it’s not unusual for games to have similar issues. As an Early Access title, Magic: Legends still had a lot of time to make the game better. Not to mention, following an Early Access release, Magic: Legends could still make use of multiple Open Beta periods to further refine the experience based on user feedback. For Perfect World and Cryptic Studios to outright cancel such a huge game at this stage of development is uncommon. Had Magic: Legends been released, it would have been available in late 2021 for the PC (via Steam), as well as on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. We suspect that Perfect World would have pushed the game back to a Holiday 2021 release date so that it wouldn’t have to contend with the more popular Diablo 2: Resurrected. Unfortunately, Cryptic Studios doesn’t seem to be interested in pursuing the game anymore. In fact, the studio clarified that it has “no plans” to resume work on the game. While this is sad news for Magic: The Gathering fans, there are still other projects based in the same universe in the works. Joe and Anthony Russo, the directors behind Avengers: Endgame, are currently working on a Magic: The Gathering animated show that’s set to release sometime this 2021 on Netflix.
