Remember Magic: Legends? The game was revealed a couple of months back, and it recently went into an open beta phase. Well, it’s now shutting down. Indeed the first time I can recall a game shutting down before leaving the beta phase. 

Steve Ricossa announced the news via a blog post this morning, writing: 

“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!”

All players who spent any real-world money in-game through either Arc or the Epic Games Store during the Open Beta will be refunded in full. Additionally, everything in the Zen Shop (the in-game store) will be purchasable using the free in-game currency later this week. 

A beta phase is usually used to tweak and improve on a game before the full launch. Although I’ve seen complaints about some grinding issues, and the in-game store for Magic: Legends, none of it sounded un-fixable, so this is undoubtedly a surprising direction for the game. 

Magic: Legends will shut down at 4:59 AM on November the 1st, 2021.