The Elder Scrolls: Blades has officially reached the end of its journey. As of June 30, Bethesda has shut down the free-to-play mobile RPG, bringing nearly six years of dungeon crawling to a close. The game had already been removed from digital storefronts in the months leading up to its full shutdown, but existing players have been able to keep playing until the servers went offline. Now, another Elder Scrolls game has disappeared, and fans are no closer to the release of The Elder Scrolls 6 (even if Xbox & Bethesda want to speed up its production).
Bethesda first announced the Elder Scrolls: Blades shutdown back in March, giving players roughly three months’ notice to do all they want to do before the game went offline. Given that some video game shutdowns occur with little-to-no warning at all, Bethesda seems to care about respecting players’ time and emotional investment in this game. What’s more, during this time, the studio also made every item in the in-game store available for just one Gem or one Sigil, making it easier for players to unlock anything they may have missed before the game’s final day. It was a small but welcome sendoff (and one that let longtime players experience nearly everything Elder Scrolls: Blades had to offer before support ended).
Rest in Peace, Blades
Originally released in 2020 for mobile devices and Nintendo Switch, The Elder Scrolls: Blades brought Bethesda’s first-person RPG formula to mobile devices. Players joined the Blades faction, explored dungeons, completed quests, and rebuilt a town while progressing through an original Elder Scrolls story. While it never reached the same popularity as games like Skyrim or Oblivion (few games ever do), it still served as Bethesda’s biggest attempt to bring the Elder Scrolls formula to phones and tablets.
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No one benefits when a video game shuts down, and while it may be rare to hear of it happening to a Bethesda game, it’s not unheard of at all. Bethesda shut down The Elder Scrolls: Legends in early 2025 after roughly six years of service, now leaving The Elder Scrolls: Castles as the franchise’s only remaining mobile game (for now). And beyond the market, it’s worth asking if such a shutdown could eventually happen to Fallout 76 or The Elder Scrolls Online? As always-online requirements become even more present, it’s worth asking if this is the eventual fate of games not even out yet, like The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5?
It is believed that Bethesda’s plan is to work on Fallout 5 sometime after The Elder Scrolls 6, putting both games years away, and it is believed that Fallout 3/Fallout: New Vegas remakes could be coming soon, too. Bethesda’s worlds are still expanding, but it also feels like they’re shrinking. Releases have slowed, and now with Elder Scrolls: Blades‘ servers going offline, the number of active Elder Scrolls games has gotten a little smaller.
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Whether Elder Scrolls: Blades will be remembered as a hidden gem or simply an interesting experiment remains to be seen. Its reviews were mixed when it launched, but it nonetheless represented an important chapter in Bethesda’s efforts to expand Elder Scrolls beyond traditional RPGs. Now that the servers have closed for good, Elder Scrolls: Blades joins the growing list of live-service games that can no longer be played, marking the end of another piece of Elder Scrolls history.
