Riot Games has officially announced League of Legends: Wild Rift for mobile devices. The title will also be coming to unspecified consoles.
We all knew it was just a matter of time, and what better time than on League of Legends 10th anniversary? Riot Games has built a new League of Legends game from scratch, subtitled Wild Rift. The gameplay rivals that of its PC sibling but features much shorter games that clock in around 15 minutes in length. Wild Rift also boasts a brand-new twin-stick control setup that is ideal for mobile gaming and consoles. Riot Games says that “…it is a new game built from scratch to ensure it is a polished, legitimate LoL experience that’s worth players’ time.”
While this is clearly a boon for both MOBA fans and Riot Games, the choice to bring League of Legends to mobile devices might cannibalize players from other games in publisher Tencent’s roster. They are also involved in another mobile MOBA—Arena of Valor. However, losing players from one of their games to a more successful game they own is a good problem to have, and a mobile version of League of Legends is sure to be a wise investment.
Of course, some concessions had to be made to bring the title to phones. This means that not all champions or skins will be available at launch. However, to lighten this blow, PC players will be rewarded for their time playing, likely in the form of unique skins and other rewards.
League of Legends: Wild Rift will launch in 2020 on mobile and pre-registration is available today on Google Play. Unfortunately, we have no word on a console release date, let alone which consoles it will be coming to. It seems likely that it will come to the big three—Xbox One, Playstation 4, and Nintendo Switch. There aren’t any technical limitations in place to limit its performance on these consoles and each one would work well with a dual-stick control scheme.
The only roadblock for consoles might be if Riot Games has struck an exclusivity deal with one of the above companies, but the odds of that happening are slim to none.
Source: TheVerge