While the company still experienced sales growth each year, the adventure genre was being outsold by other genres. Legend shifted strategies with the rising popularity of the first-person shooter. Game developer Tim Sweeney was developing an engine that would eventually become the Unreal Engine, and Legend designer Glen Dahlgren impressed Sweeney with a vision for The Wheel of Time (based on the book series). This led to a partnership with Epic Games, which led Legend to be acquired by publisher GT Interactive in 1999, as the publisher had worked with both Legend and Epic. Legend released The Wheel of Time in 1999, a first-person action game that represented a major shift from their reputation for adventure games. The game enjoyed more critical than commercial success, overshadowed by other major titles in the first-person shooter genre. Bates lamented that "it was hard to watch as adventure games became less popular. But it was exciting to take our expertise in storytelling and puzzle design into a whole new genre."
