Riot Games has celebrated the tenth anniversary of League of Legends with a bang. Scrap that, this is an explosion, featuring several enormous news announcements.
Riot Games kicked off the League of Legends 10-Year Celebration with a special 10th Anniversary Edition of Riot Pls. The stream, which took place at 2AM BST (available to re-watch at: www.leagueoflegends.com) announced a raft of new projects that significantly expand the League of Legends (LoL) IP and transition Riot Games into a multi-game, multi-genre developer and publisher. Watch out, Blizzard.
Here’s a run-down of what was announced this morning during the 10th Anniversary Riot Pls:
Project A shooter revealed
Riot Games is developing a competitive character-based tactical shooter for PC, temporarily codenamed Project A. The game is set on a near-future Earth and has a cast of characters, each with unique abilities that create different tactical opportunities. More information is to be revealed in 2020.
League of Legends Esports Manager announced, will offer teams a revenue share
League of Legends Esports Manager is a team management game currently in development that will allow fans to assemble a world-class League of Legends esports teams as a team manager, signing players to contracts, and more.
LoL Esports Manager is designed to ‘expand the esports ecosystem’ and will invest in its longevity by sharing revenue generated from the game with the featured pro teams. The game will first launch in the League of Legends Pro League (LPL) region next year with the intent to eventually expand to other regional leagues.
League of Legends coming to mobile and console in Wild Rift guise
League of Legends: Wild Rift is a new 5v5 MOBA for mobile and console. It features much of the same gameplay as LoL on PC, adapted for new platforms.
Wild Rift has a new twin-stick control scheme and a rebuilt Rift designed for 15-18 minute games. Wild Rift is not a port of LoL on PC – it is a new game built from scratch ‘to ensure it is a polished, legitimate LoL experience that’s worth players’ time’, says Riot.
League of Legends: Wild Rift will launch on mobile in 2020, and pre-registration on the Google Play Store is now available. For more information, visit https://wildrift.leagueoflegends.com or @wildrift on Twitter.
Project L and Project F: Fighting game and… RPG?
Project L is a temporary codename for a fighting game set in the LoL Universe. The game is in early stage development, and no additional details are available at this time.
Project F is a temporary codename for a very early development project that ‘explores the possibilities of traversing the world of Runeterra with your friends’. It sounds like an MMO and looks like a Diablo-style action RPG, but its genre is not yet confirmed.
See the short teaser clip on both titles here.
Legends of Runeterra Card Game Revealed
Legends of Runeterra (LoR) is a free-to-play strategy card game set in the world of LoL. LoR features cards based on the iconic champions of LoL, as well as new characters and allies hailing from the regions of Runeterra, each with their own style and strategic advantage. LoR’s gameplay is built around ‘dynamic, alternating combat’ that demands players use their skill, creativity and cleverness to succeed.
LoR offers players multiple options to acquire cards, including free-to-play options and the ability to directly purchase any card with either earned or paid currency.
LoR will be fully launched in 2020 for PC and mobile and is now open for pre-registration. For more information, visit www.playruneterra.com or @legendsofruneterra on Twitter.
Teamfight Tactics Mobile and Rise of the Elements
Riot’s popular autobattler, Teamfight Tactics, is coming to mobile in Q1 2020 with pre-registration on the Google Play Store starting on October 16th. TFT is an eight person free-for-all strategy game where players strategize with LoL champions and items to defeat the seven other players in each match.
TFT on both PC and mobile will release new sets of champions and abilities every three to four months. The second set to launch in TFT for PC will be called Rise of the Elements and will feature content themed around the elementals, giving players opportunities to create new strategies with other, not-yet-seen, characters and items.
Rise of the Elements will be released on November 5th in the LoL client. For more information and to sign up for updates visit teamfighttactics.leagueoflegends.com or visit @TFT on Twitter.
New Animated Series ‘Arcane’ explores the origins of Jinx and Vi
Riot Games’ Arcane is a League of Legends animated series developed and produced by Riot Games releasing in 2020. Set in utopian Piltover and the oppressed underground of Zaun, the story follows the origins of two iconic League champions – Jinx and Vi – and the power that will tear them apart.
League of Legends updates and changes
Let’s not forget the main game itself. LoL is introducing a new champion to the Rift, Senna. Originally one of the many souls trapped in Thresh’s lantern and a fan favorite since her introduction in Lucian’s story, Senna is the newest support to join LoL’s roster of more than 140 champions and will uniquely embody a marksman-like playstyle. She will hit the Public Beta Environment on October 29th and live servers on November 10th.
Starting October 22nd on the Public Beta Environment, players will bear witness to the biggest changes to Summoner’s Rift in years with Rise of the Elements, a series of preseason gameplay changes built on one of the game’s most dynamic features, the Elemental Drakes. Live server players will explore these preseason features on November 20th.
For the first time in four years, LoL will also bring back Ultra Rapid Fire (URF) with full champion select, a popular limited-time game mode. Additionally, all Riot products will begin gradually supporting Arabic language. And Riot will release a series of nine albums featuring music from each season of LoL on preferred streaming music platforms on October 16th.
Finally, as a thank you to all players who’ve set foot on the Rift, for 10 days starting October 17th, all players with accounts made prior to October 16th at 2am BST will receive an in-game gift every day they log in and play a game, in the lead up to the actual LoL anniversary date of October 27th.
League of Legends Origins
League of Legends Origins is a feature-length documentary by Academy Award-nominated documentarian Leslie Iwerks. In it, Iwerks explores the rise of LoL and the community that made LoL one of the most-played PC games in history and fastest growing sports in the world.
Told by the fans who love LoL and the visionaries who built it, Iwerks captures the highs and lows of making a global phenomenon, from the early days of development through the 2017 World Championship in the Beijing National Stadium. League of Legends Origins is available now on Netflix and many streaming video on demand platforms.
Riot Games Social Impact Fund ‘Karma’ Announced
Riot has announced the formation of The Riot Games Social Impact Fund, a non-profit engine to power continued global social impact. Riot’s Karma program has already donated more than $4 million to charities around the world, including many charitable causes selected by LoL players.
Dawnbringer Karma (pictured) will be the first LoL skin in which all proceeds will go to the Riot Games Social Impact Fund.
What’s next?
There will be a deeper dive into some of the newly announced projects happening today during ‘League 10-Year: Live from Europe’, a livestream from ExCeL London at 7:30pm BST. For more info, visit celebrate.leagueoflegends.com
Phew! What do you think of the announcements? Let us know in the comments box below.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
