User blog:The Crusader of Truth/The Elder Scrolls: Legends Has a New Developer

Hey guys! Crusader here with some rather interesting news. This year definitely marks an interesting change with the development of The Elder Scrolls: Legends. For the random reader living under a rock, which is a surprising amount of people, The Elder Scrolls: Legends is a card game based on the Elder Scrolls series, released in 2017. I haven't done a blog post in awhile now, but that should start to change soon I'm hoping. *cough* Interviews *cough.*

Anyway, to hit the nail on the head, Bethesda is shifting the ongoing development of the game from Dire Wolf Digital to Sparkypants. As Bethesda describes them, they are a "a team of exceedingly talented developers with a passion and commitment to strategy gaming, competitive multiplayer and of course, The Elder Scrolls universe."

Why this is big news
Sparkypants, or Sparkypants Studios LLC, plans on creating an entirely new client for Legends. This client won't bring new and drastic changes, such as completely restarting the entire game, however, it is planned to change various user interface parts, menus, visuals, and development parts. Essentially, Bethesda is planning on allowing Sparkypants to overhaul the game, while trying to keep the original feeling for the game. The goal of this change is to provide new features, as well as to try to improve how the game runs. Bethesda states that Dire Wolf working on another CCG game, Eternal, did not play a role in the decision to replace them.

It is extremely important to note that Bethesda has stated that they plan on allowing users to keep collections, story progression, etc. Decks are also planned to be kept intact, and any existing expansions will still be available for purchase. There is no placed time on how long Legends will go down off the servers for this change to take place, however. @TESLegends and @sparkypants will eventually post more information on when the change will take place. There will be more information released during E3.

Okay. But who is Sparkypants?
I'll be the first to admit that I think it's quite an interesting name choice for a company. My opinion aside, Sparkypants is the company who is best known for releasing Dropzone, a free-to-play game currently in early access on Steam. Sparkypants is also the company that developed Sparkle Engine, a gaming engine for RTS (Real-time strategy) MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) ARPG (Action role-playing game) games. They tend to release blogs on the development of Dropzone on their website, which can be found here.

Bethesda believes that Sparkypants will be able to make the game better, into "what the community wants." They state that the company has a lot of experience in a lot of different genres, and that this will play a huge, and helpful, role to trying to develop Legends. It is also notable that with the addition of Legends, Sparkypants is looking to expand their development team, and is hiring.

Closing notes and summary
Sparkypants seems to be a really interesting change for Legends. Bethesda hopes that the game should improve the game, and really "make it into the game that it's supposed to be." It is extremely notable that this is an extremely large scale change; a lot will take place over the redevelopment of the game.

If you want more information on the upcoming changes, check out the links below. Also, Friday, June 1 at 3:00 p.m. ET, there will be a regularly-scheduled Legends livestream with Pete Hines and Christian Van Hoose where they will take some time to answer questions that will rise up with the changes. Also be sure to watch the Bethesda E3 Showcase Sunday, June 10 at 6:30 PM PT.