The move was defended by Executive Producer Jeffrey Blattner, who said:  "We got to a certain checkpoint some time ago and examined what we had. One thing we pride ourselves on at New World is the gameplay, and we just didn't feel like we would be able to deliver a fun experience for people with what we had at the time, so at that point a decision was made to not proceed in the original direction, and instead we decided to make a different type of game," explains Executive Producer Jeffrey Blattner. "The Might and Magic series is already so varied in terms of gameplay anyway. We have the Heroes strategy series and the tried and true Might and Magic RPG series, and everyone was really interested in branching out into an action style game, so that's how we found ourselves here. The original goal of Legends was to deliver the first online Might and Magic game, and we're still going to do that." A demo for the game was released on April 18, 2001. On June 8 it went gold. The first patch (Version 1.1) came out on July 20. "Legends of Might and Magic" was likened to a fantasy version of "Counter-Strike" by most reviewers; according to IGN, "Legends" "pretty much blatantly rips off "Counter-Strike"." IGN also criticized the game for its lack of strategy, lack of differences between classes, and unbalanced weapons. GameSpy criticized the game for its poor implementation of single-player gameplay and lack of a map editor. The LithTech-based graphics were praised, however, and the game was said to have potential to grow. GameSpot criticized the game for its uninspired similarities to "Counter-Strike", oping that "if mediocrity and complacency were crimes, "Legends of Might and Magic" would get tossed in the dungeon." A compilation of reviews on GameRankings showed the game had an average score of 57% based on 15 reviews. It has an aggregate score of 53% on Metacritic. Carla Hacker reviewed the PC version of the game for "Next Generation", rating it two stars out of five, and stated that "Unoriginal and uninspiring, this team-based FPS is not the stuff of legends."