Magic: Legends, the online action RPG set in the world of the Magic: the Gathering Multiverse created by Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment, announced it is shutting down on October 31, 2021 roughly eight months after launching the open beta.
Servers will remain open until October 31 and all money spent in-game across Arc and the Epic Games Store during open beta will be refunded. The announcement states that “Our vision for Magic: Legends missed the mark” and that “we learned several valuable lessons along the way, and we will use them to improve Cryptic’s future development efforts.”
Magic: Legends’ open beta was met with immediate disappointment and criticism pointing out countless bugs, glitches, and uninspired game play. The Magic: Legends Twitter account had recently posted a game update on June 24 that included improvements, bug fixes, and more. Magic: Legends dropped to single digit Twitch viewers quickly after launch and remained that way.
A former employee of Cryptic Studios tweeted that the company laid off 44 employees this morning in part of the canceling of the game. @walzmusic said Cryptic Studios decided to cancel the game for poor financial performance.
The announcement ended with a thank you to players for playing and submitting feedback throughout alpha and beta testing phases.