Magic: Legends' status as a pretty new game means it was largely developed in the middle of 2020, and everybody knows that that was a challenging year for all sides of the entertainment industry when everyone needed entertainment most. Magic: Legends, however, seemed to charge through development largely undaunted, even though fans only knew about it for a few months before lockdowns went into place internationally.
Some worried that its development would be heavily stymied by this setback, but nevertheless, the game's development moved forward. Magic fans interested in the action RPG experience that Magic: Legends was offering got many months worth of development updates throughout the year.
Magic: Legends had a brief period of silence, but now it's back in the public eye. The developer announced that Magic: Legends will go into open beta this March, and that's a pretty sudden reversal after three months without any updates on the game. Although the change might be jarring, it's more than welcome. The announcement of an open beta in only a few weeks means really good things for Magic: Legends' overall state of development. If open beta is coming so soon, more delays probably aren't in Magic: Legends' future. What's more, the game is quickly getting back into its reputation for community building.
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The developers behind Magic: Legends have always seemed really eager to get players to try the game. After all, sign-ups for alpha testing started as soon as the game was announced at The Game Awards 2019. Those alpha tests still took place throughout 2020, even though the developer had to work around the pandemic. Magic: Legends showed an extraordinary amount of resolve by soldiering through the challenges. When the game went quiet, fans worried that the pandemic finally got to the game, so announcing the open beta proves that fans don't need to worry any more.
Open beta generally means that a game is getting very close to its final version. The developer may just want to let players roam the game freely and stress test its overall contents, resulting in plenty of polishing before the official release. Magic: Legends already got delayed once, but if it's going into open beta, it probably won't get delayed again. Fans can expect the final version of the game to release sometime this year, whenever the developer decides to release it. There's always the chance that the open beta will take longer than planned, but that'll be good for the game in the long run. A few months of beta testing is a small price to pay for a 2021 release.
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Content peripheral to the beta announcement is just as important to Magic: Legends in general. Magic: Legends was once great at community engagement, with a very active Twitter and lots of regular updates and teasers. After a couple quiet months, it looks like the game's development will be very transparent again. There's already new videos on the game's YouTube channel, and the developer might be getting back into Magic: Legends Twitch streams. All of these are great ways to keep fans talking about the game, and considering how much the developer leans back into Magic: Legends' community engagement, it looks like it could be building up hype for an impending release
Lots of games have been stuck in development and fallen silent recently. It would be a shame if Magic: Legends ended up like Elden Ring or The Elder Scrolls 6, announced years before release and sending fans home empty-handed after flashy reveals. With the open beta on the way, it doesn't look like that'll be the case, so maybe the developer just needed a couple months to nail down aspects of the game ahead of the beta. Now that that work is done, Magic: Legends can go back to being an inviting and charismatic game. Magic fans might still have a while to wait to play the final version of Magic: Legends, but there's nothing stopping them from signing up for the long-awaited beta.
Magic: Legends releases in 2021 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.