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Part of what makes a game series excellent is the developer's willingness to branch out into new ideas and concepts. Without innovation, a series can quickly become stale and uninteresting, and sequels can feel like a cash grab more than a legitimate step forward for the series.

However, not every attempt made by game developers to branch out is necessarily accepted by fans of a series. Bethesda's E3 2015 announcement that they're launching a new card game based off of The Elder Scrolls series is the latest example of a mixed response from fans.

Bethesda Spokesman Pete Hines introduced the new game, The Elder Scrolls: Legends comically, casually kicked back playing a mobile game on his tablet in the middle of Bethesda's biggest annual game presentation. He explained that he and many other gamers enjoy playing games everywhere, and that fondness for being to game anywhere was combined with the genre of trading card games to create The Elder Scrolls: Legends, an Elder Scrolls-inspired strategy card game for mobile devices. The trailer, seen above, reveals some of the artwork that will most likely make its way into the game, but otherwise didn't unveil much about how the game will play. However, they did announce that the game will be free to play, presumably with optional in-app purchases.

The Elder Scrolls Legends Announced Orc Card

Spin-off competitive card games that are based off long-running game series have become quite popular lately. Final Fantasy XIV recently brought back Triple Triad from Final Fantasy VIII, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is excelling in popularity, and a mod for Tabletop Simulator was created to let gamers play a version of Gwent from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt without the core game. However, the fan response to Bethesda's announcement at their plans to join the TCG market can be considered mixed at best, with more downvotes than upvotes on the official trailer on Bethesda's YouTube channel. While some fans may be disinterested in general, others may be peeved that the game is currently only slated to be released for the iPad and PC.

While The Elder Scrolls: Legends doesn't take away anything from Bethesda's other amazing announcements at E3 2015, it also doesn't look like it'll be winning any popularity contests anytime soon. While the Fallout 4 pip-boy app combines mobile phone and in-game interactivity, this app probably strikes some Elder Scrolls fans as a boring cash grab that's not worth their time.

Are you interested in playing The Elder Scrolls: Legends? Let us know in the comments.

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The Elder Scrolls: Legends will release later in 2015, and will be available for the iPad and PC.