W
ith competitors
ranging from giants
like Hearthstone to
veterans like Magic:
The Gathering,
Legends of Runeterra had arguably
the most difficult job when it came
to establishing the world of League
of Legends within a new genre.
How has it been? "Thrilling,"
according to design director
Andrew Yip, "and pretty much
what I signed up for. As a
developer, it often feels like there is
a silent community of developers
trying to solve often very different
problems, but working separately,
arriving at different conclusions.
But at the end of the day, LoR also
provides a unique value to many of
its players – an exploration of the
League of Legends IP."Legends of Runeterra explores the
LoL world through its cards, each of
which comes from one of Runeterra's
geographic regions. The final and
most recent of those, Bandle City,
launched this summer, but while that
might feel like something of an
endpoint, “there's also a really
exciting opportunity to take a step
back and discuss what worked, what
didn't, and start to iterate them as a
holistic set of regions. In many waysON THE CARDS
How LEGENDS OF RUNETERRA plans to move
past its first design era. By Alistair Jonesall of the sets leading up to this point
were just a first draft of what we
thought each region's identity should
be." There are also dozens of League
champions not yet added to the
game, many of which don't
necessarily fall cleanly into any of
those established regions.RUNESTRUCK
Between new arrivals and new ideas,
Yip says Legends of Runeterra still
offers "a complete ocean of
exploration" – including some of
those originally brought to life in the
game's explorative Labs mode – but
as the game continues to grow, at
some point Riot will have to address
the reality of a growing collection of
cards. Eventually, that could mean
that old cards will need to be rotated
out to make way for new ideas, an
idea that Yip says the team is now
considering. "Regarding rotation
specifically, that's definitely
something we're discussing, but no
plans have been set in stone quite
yet. However, as with everything,
we will first take a step back and
understand what's best for our
community and our game. It would
be easy to take 'off the shelf' solutions
that so many other games use, but we
want to challenge ourselves to see if
we can do better."I’LL SCOUT AHEAD!
Legends of Runeterra expands Runeterra
CHAMPIONS
Away from the chaos of
Summoner’s Rift, the game offers a
chance to more fully develop
champion’s personalities.
REGIONS
Legends of Runeterra explores each
of its ten regions’ defining features,
from the frozen land of Freljord to
the spooky Shadow Isles.NPCs
The champions might hog the
limelight, but Legends of Runeterra
also brings hundreds of background
characters to life.
CINEMATICS
It wouldn’t be a Riot game without
world-beating cinematics, such as
Renekton and Nasus duking it out
in the desert.EACH CARD COMES FROM
ONE OF RUNETERRA’S
GEOGRAPHIC REGIONS
RIOT GAMES