Scrolls, the digital collectible card game from Minecraft developer Mojang, has announced that the game is now free-to-play. It’s also now called Caller’s Bane.
The company did not disclose the reason behind the name change, only stating “I’m sure there’s a good reason for it. Perhaps we just didn’t like the sound of “Scrolls”.” Although they did say that the game is “still the same game you’ve known and loved.”
When the game was first announced back in 2011, ZeniMax Media, owners of Bethesda Softworks and its Elder Scrolls franchise, filed a suit against Mojang’s attempt to trademark the Scrolls name. In the end, the suit was settled with ZeniMax licensing the “Scrolls” trademark to Mojang. These events might have prompted the company to rename the game to avoid further issues.
One caveat with the game’s free-to-play release though is that the official game servers have been offline since February 13, 2018, so those who want to play the game now that it’s free will need to either host their own servers or connect to a community server. The developers have released a package that contains all the files needed to set up a server as well as instructions for how to do so.
Those who set up their own servers will be able to re-balance and tweak the game as they see fit. Server hosts can change rules, create new trials, change starter collections, change gold or card distribution, and more. Mojang has also included instructions on how to go about tweaking the server in the server package.
For those who just want to get into the game, the folks at Scrolls Guide have already launched their own community server. Access to community servers was something Mojang talked about in an update earlier this year, alongside the announcement of the official server shutdown. So in spite of development for the game supposedly ending back in 2015, it looks like the team has been working on this feature since.
Scrolls, now called Caller’s Bane, is now available for free on PC and Mac.
