Bethesda announces that "The Elder Scrolls: Blades" will be permanently shut down at the end of the month, Todd Howard's mobile game has completely failed.

Bethesda announced that its free mobile game, The Elder Scrolls Blades, will permanently shut down its servers on June 30, and the game has been fully removed from the App Store, Google Play, and Nintendo eShop.
(Background recap: the Pudgy Penguins mobile game Pudgy Party will launch on the App Store and Google Play, with pre-registration now open.)
(Additional background: California’s “Game Protection Law” cleared the hurdle—before the publisher stops service, it must provide a “full refund” or retain an “independent offline version.”)

Key Highlights

• The Elder Scrolls Blades will permanently shut down on 6/30 and has been delisted from all digital storefronts.
• Metacritic scores only 42 (Switch version), making it the 10th-lowest-rated game of 2020.
• After Legends shut down, only one mobile game in the series remains; The Elder Scrolls 6 is expected to release no sooner than 2028.

Six years ago, Todd Howard stood on the E3 stage and pitched Bethesda’s mobile ambitions to the whole crowd with a carefully crafted demo. Six years later, the game quietly disappeared from stores, and the servers entered their final countdown. Bethesda’s mobile game strategy is clearing the field at a pace of one title retired per year.

A six-year ordeal with a Metacritic score of 42

According to GameRant, when Blades was announced at E3 2018, it was widely anticipated. Todd Howard personally took the stage to demonstrate the real-time combat system, hinting it would be an “Elder Scrolls you can play anytime, anywhere.” It launched into early access in March 2019. In its first week, downloads surpassed 1 million; iOS first-month revenue exceeded $1.5 million—results were decent.

But after its official launch on Android, iOS, and Nintendo Switch in May 2020, reviews collapsed across the board. The Switch version scored only 42 on Metacritic. OpenCritic listed an 8% recommendation rate, and Nintendo Life gave it a 3/10—ranking it as the 10th-lowest-rated game of 2020 on Metacritic.

Its linear level design completely diverged from the series’ signature open-world DNA, and players repeatedly complained about the “microtransaction system” and the energy mechanics inside it.

After Bethesda announced the shutdown, it offered a “farewell promotion”: all items in the in-game shop were reduced to 1 gem or 1 token, allowing the remaining players to experience everything they hadn’t purchased.

All series mobile games have fallen

Blades isn’t the first Elder Scrolls mobile action game to be shut down. In January 2025, the card game The Elder Scrolls: Legends, which had been running for six years, was the first to close. Now Blades is following suit, leaving only the content from The Elder Scrolls: Castles, released in 2024. It’s close to a castle-building simulator, and the series’ RPG core has little connection to it anymore.

What players are really waiting for is The Elder Scrolls 6, and according to industry information it may not be released until 2028 to 2029 at the earliest. After Microsoft completed its acquisition of Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion in 2021, development resources clearly shifted toward major console and PC titles, making mobile products less meaningful to maintain.

Frequently Asked Questions

When will The Elder Scrolls Blades shut down?

Bethesda has announced it will permanently shut down its servers on June 30, 2026. The game has been removed from all digital stores and can no longer be downloaded.

When will The Elder Scrolls 6 be released?

Based on industry information, it is expected to release no earlier than 2028 to 2029. Bethesda has not yet announced an official release date.