The Elder Scrolls: Blades is gone. It is also still playable.
Bethesda switched the servers off on 30 June 2026. Before they went quiet, this community recorded how the game talked to them — and that recording is now a server you can connect to. It is not a reconstruction from memory. It is the game, answered by us.
8 had it running the day the servers went dark. It has more than tripled since — the one count on this page that can still grow.
Getting in
Three steps, one evening at most. Android only for now — the client has to be modified to talk to us instead of Bethesda, and iOS won't run a modified build. You need an approved account first; that is a human check, and it usually takes under a day.
- 1
Install the client
Download our build of the Blades APK. It is the real game — same assets, same combat — pointed at our server instead of the one that no longer answers.
- 2
Turn on the tunnel
Import the newblades WireGuard config and connect. It routes only the game to us; the rest of your phone goes out normally. Use the full-tunnel config — the older scoped ones no longer work at all.
- 3
Claim your character
Log in once, then link the device to your account. If your character was preserved before the shutdown, it loads with its level, gear, abilities and quest history intact.
The arena, as of today
last major update 25 July 2026Player-versus-player is the part we rebuilt hardest, because it is the part we captured best. Combat now runs on the game's own item and ability data, pulled from the client's files — not on estimates.
Matches connect and resolve
Two players, a real fight, a winner, and a victory screen whose gold, XP, trophies and chest progress are actually saved.
Real weapon and armour numbers
Damage, attack speed, recovery and block values come from the game's item data. Checked against recordings of real pre-shutdown matches: within about 1%.
Abilities behave
Real cooldowns, real stamina and magicka costs, real effect values. Ten abilities used to cost nothing at all.
Blocking and combos
A well-timed block negates physical damage and halves elemental. Combos only build if you genuinely alternate left and right.
Your opponent is your opponent
Both fighters used to render wearing your character's appearance. Fixed — each of you now sees the other's real character and gear.
Everything outside the arena
Town, merchants, quests and the chest economy run, and preserved characters load into them. Expect rough edges; that is what the report form is for.
Known issues — don't report these
We already know. Reporting anything not on this list is the single most useful thing you can do.
- Potions don't heal you
The charge is used and the animation plays, but your health won't move. We have the potion item data; we don't have trustworthy heal values, and we would rather do nothing than invent a number.
- Some visual effects are missing
Weapon glow and certain impact effects. Cosmetic; the underlying damage is correct.
- Weapon tempering levels are approximate
The damage tier mapping is calibrated, not exact.
- Draws and double knockouts are guesswork
The real game's behaviour in that case was never captured, so ours is a reasonable invention rather than a reproduction.
- The first match after a server restart can be slow to start
Cold start. It settles.
- Your opponent looked like a copy of youfixed
Fixed on 25 July 2026. The server was mixing up which player was which, on every match, permanently. If you still see it, that one we do want to hear about.
85 characters were preserved before the servers went dark, saved by 153 contributors, alongside 1,354,766 decrypted arena frames, 765 capture sessions and the arguments we made while there was still time to make them. Nothing new can enter that record. All of it is still readable.
Where the rest of this lives
The gathering place for Blades players. Guides, theorycrafting, the social side. If you came here looking for the community, that's where the people are.
The Rust reimplementation of the Blades backend that newblades runs on. Everything it knows about the game, it learned from the traffic this community captured.
Who runs what · Frequently asked · Recover a character we never captured