Facepalm: Let's face facts: Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls: Legends is a good and fun card game, but it is not what fans of the series expected or wanted of the series. Couple that with the MT-laden Blades mobile game and you have two back-to-back disappointments from the developer. All I can say is, The Elder Scrolls VI better hit the ball out of the park.

The Elder Scrolls: Legends has taken an arrow to the knee, as it appears that Bethesda has halted work on its card-battling title. The free-to-play game, based on the characters, monsters, and lore of The Elder Scrolls series, is still available, and servers are being maintained on the platforms that it has already been released on --- namely Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.

However, it looks like the plans to launch it on consoles have evaporated. So it would seem its beef with Sony about cross-play functionality is a moot point now. Future updates and new content on current platforms have also apparently been scrapped. Bethesda broke the news on The Elder Scrolls: Legends subreddit on Friday.

"We decided to put any new content development or releases on hold for the foreseeable future," said the community manager. "New expansions and other future content are no longer under active development. We will continue to provide ongoing maintenance support."

Usually, when a developer quits producing content on a live game, server shutdown follows shortly after. Bethesda did not mention that it would be pulling the plug entirely on the game, but with no new content coming, including a card pack that was supposed to be released before the end of the year, it is hard to see the player base continuing to support the game.

That said, Bethesda made it clear that it was not abandoning the title --- at least at this time. It will continue to run the servers and offer up the usual monthly reward cards.

"We are immensely grateful to work on The Elder Scrolls: Legends, to have you as a community, and we sincerely appreciate the love and support you've given us," the CM added, giving the announcement a tone of finality.

The Elder Scrolls: Legends was generally well-received by critics, scoring an 80 on our review aggregator but has a mediocre following. While Bethesda has not released any numbers, Steam Spy shows an install base between one and two million.

Even more telling, the active concurrent player count is dismal with less than 1,000 online together as of Sunday's check. Even previous numbers were only around 2,000. Of course, this does not account for mobile users, but still, Steam's concurrent player count makes the game's future look bleak.

Masthead credit: sUBzERoo via DeviantArt