Tracking the future of League of Legends with Riot’s new studio head

Over the last few years, League of Legends has been steadily growing. Simply being a MOBA to having a multiverse full of colorful takes on familiar characters — there’s a stand-alone RPG, a mobile port, a critically acclaimed animated show on Netflix, and a forthcoming novel. League of LegendsIt is now 10 years old and, despite all the new additions to it, has maintained its core. League — a competitive 5v5 game that takes place across a map with three lanes and a jungle full of dangerous monsters.

Riot revealed Wednesday that Andrei Van Roon (a long-standing member of the studio, who designed champions such as Ziggs, Lissandra and Lissandra), would take over the headship of League Studio. Van Roon will be responsible for the production of League of LegendsThe mobile version of the port Wild RiftAnd the Auto-chess Spinoff Teamfight tactics.

The League franchise currently has many characters across all its mainline titles. Each character has their own requirements in terms both of technical maintenance and the creation of new content. The daunting task of maintaining a fresh title with a history of technical and visual debts of a decade is a challenge for Riot. Van Roon was interviewed by Polygon to discuss how League would grow over the next few years.

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Rapid Iteration

League of Legends has a two-week patch cycle; there’s consistently something coming out, even if it’s just balance adjustments or smaller changes. This cadence is popular with fans; Van Roon says it’s critical to both League’s success and to avoiding a culture of continual crunch.

“I found out fairly recently that before League launched, one of the requirements that Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck had was that they were willing to sacrifice quite a lot of other functionality to get the ability to patch every two weeks,” says Van Roon in a call with Polygon. The smaller patches allow developers relative freedom to change project timelines. “We’re not always going to get things right the first time — but we’ve got a bunch of chances to get it right, and a willingness to keep stepping into problems until we find out what the good stuff does look like.”

LeagueThere are almost 80 champions ported to the roster. Wild Rift. Champions are often refreshed by new models. Wild Rift and League of LegendsOn PC, fans can witness major changes to champions such Udyr or Volibear. Champion updates are handled across three teams: There’s one group for Summoner’s Rift that handles the major patches and pre-season adjustments; one group of champion designers that overhauls old champions and recreates them from the ground up; and one group on the Skins team that does art and sustainability updates to bring older, janky characters like Ahri and Caitlyn into the modern era.

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While it can be frustrating to watch older characters, like Rammus, languish with their old models and animations while newer, shinier champions like Nilah rock up, Van Roon says there’s a balance to strike when it comes to revisiting old, beloved champions.

“We have some groups of players who don’t want new stuff, they like the current state of the game, or they don’t enjoy new champions and want the older ones updated,” he says. “We also see some groups of players and regions who have hunger for new stuff. It is not easy to meet the different needs of these players. The other thing we see is an attitude of ‘I want more updates — except for my champions, go do something to the champions I don’t like and don’t touch my stuff.’”

Change is hard, and sometimes an update — even if it brings an old, dusty champion back into the mainstream — can scare away its old mains. “I think we’ve gotten better with our updates of preserving the core of what a player was there for in the first place. But we’re always going to miss for some particular players,” says Van Roon. In the meantime LeagueReleases smaller and more frequent updates in mid-scope to keep old champions on track. With a roster so large, it’s impossible to give everyone some love, but regular patches and multiple teams keep League afloat.

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Forward looking for the future

As other games evolve and change, they introduce new modes or transform their core concept. League is still played on a very similar map, and some of the game’s earliest champions still exist in mostly the same form. Van Roon says that players are less likely to stay with limited-time events like Star Guardian Invasion and Odyssey: Extraction.

“I think one of the reasons the idea is popular, and I share this feeling, is the idea of ‘I want to play my favorite champion in a PvE thing,” he says. “Sweet, that sounds great — but how much in a MOBA is the bones you want to build that experience on?”

Riot tried adding stuff to and about LeagueWhere playing games are a means to unlock new chapters or receive cosmetic rewards, As Van Roon notes, a 5v5 competitive MOBA isn’t the best avenue for storytelling.

Riot Games

Wild RiftGuilds Vs. Guilds has been updated with more storytelling features. This feature allows gamers to uncover smaller-scale narratives as well as rivalries between champions. On PC, there are the big events — first Spirit Blossom, then the big Sentinels of Light event, and the recent alternate universe magical girl Star Guardians story.

“Overall, we’re still figuring [events]We have many more locations where we can tell stories than we used to, and this is especially important now. LeagueWhat stories are there to be told? League,” says Van Roon. “Like, how much we should do Act One introductions for characters versus how much should we try and conclude large epic plots? I think we’re seeing that the visual novel is probably something we shouldn’t be doing this often. It was great for Spirit Blossom, it’s a great tool to have in our repertoire, but it’s not something to lean on constantly.”

Riot will support you. League of Legends, Wild RiftPlease see the following: Teamfight tacticsThe success of these modes may lead to fascinating experiments, such as comics and Riot Forge titles. Legends of RuneterraAll of these are proofs. As the universe of the franchise continues to expand, there are more avenues for characters to appear and build out the world — and there’s room for surprises.

“A few years down the road, once we’ve got everyone’s favorite champions over and so on, but then we’ll want to explore — what does a Wild Rift-unique champion look like?” asks Van Roon.