Riot Celebrates 10th Anniversary of League of Legends With Many Announcements

October 16, 2019

Written by Jamie Galea

It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years since League of Legends was released, but here we are. To mark the celebration of one of the biggest games in the world, Riot Games finally lived up to their namesake by announcing a slew of projects, most of which League of Legends related, to entice new audiences to the world of Runeterra in 2020. While a bunch ofthe announcements are so early they’re referred to in codename (such as Project A, a character-based tactical shooter) or can be explained in a sentence (Teamfight Tactics is coming to mobile in 2020), Riot gave some details on two projects.

First is Legends of Runeterra, a Competitive Card Game that takes place in the League of Legends universe. Set to be released in 2020 across PC and mobile, the game is putting its heroes first and foremost with a big emphasis on “regions”. Players will be able to unlock cards by aligning with a specific region and playing games, though you can swap between them at any point. If that’s not enough, Riot will allow players to be able to purchase the specific card they’re after instead of forcing them to purchase randomized packs. The game is currently taking pre-registrations for a closed beta, which you can do at the game’s website.

Second is League of Legends: Wild Rift. In short, it’s taking the League experience you either love or loathe, and bringing it to mobile devices. It won’t feature every champion or skin, nor will it support crossplay with the main League client, but it will reward you for being a long-term League player by using your Riot account. Matches are described to be better suited to mobile, with estimates of games lasting around 15-20 minutes. Riot have also mentioned they’re interested in bring the game to consoles, but did not specify which. Once again, this will be released in 2020, with pre-registration for Android devices available via Google Play.

It’s finally good to see after a decade that Riot are branching out and attempting new projects and ideas, and the absurdly popular League of Legends IP will do a lot to help that.