League of Legends is turning 10, and Riot Games decided to celebrate the event with a massive amount of new announcements, expanding the popular multiplayer game's universe across multiple mediums, from a competitive shooter to an animated series.
Starting with League of Legends itself, the MOBA is gaining a new hero - Senna -, limited-time events, and anniversary gifts for players, along with multiple gameplay changes. A streamlined version of League named Wild Rift is also coming to mobile and console platforms featuring dual-stick controls and 5 vs 5 matches. This free-to-play entry will go into beta in 2020.
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Moreover, Riot announced Project A, an upcoming tactical first-person shooter that looks like a cross between Counter-Strike and Overwatch, borrowing the gunplay from the former and the hero elements from the latter. The developer stressed that high-tickrate servers, reducing peeker's advantage, and effective anti-cheat are main focuses. Unlike the other announcements, this game is not set in the League universe, and more information is following in 2020.
The fighting game genre is also being invaded by Riot and its League champions, with the studio officially unveiling Project L during the celebrations. The game has been teased before, but this time Riot gave a tiny glimpse at its gameplay. The studio said to expect the game to be in development for quite some more time, meaning this could also be another 2020 drop, at the earliest.
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Although not much information was revealed today, Riot announced Project F as a mysterious new game that is still very early in development, also set in the League universe. This seems to be a cooperative dungeon crawler from the tiny glimpse of footage Riot showed off in the video on top.
Legends of Runterra was also announced today, a brand new free-to-play collectible card game that aims to take on behemoths like Hearthstone. The game is coming to PC, Android, and iOS platforms in 2020 with cross-play active between them. The cards will host familiar League characters, and they can either be bought directly - without booster packs - or earned through gameplay. Pre-registrations are open now, and hopefully, this fares better than Valve's attempt at the genre. See the video below for a full rundown on the gameplay.
Adding to the surprises, Riot announced a management game today that seems to be a Football Manager-like experience, but focusing on esports. League of Legends Esports Manager will let players build pro teams made up of real-world players as a manager aiming to take the squad to the big leagues. Revenue made from the game will also be shared with the teams featured in the game, which is releasing in 2020.
Meanwhile, Riot's take on the Auto Chess formula, Teamfight Tactics, is coming to Android and iOS in 2020 featuring full cross-play capabilities with the existing PC version. And stepping away from the games, an animated series named Arcane is also landing in 2020, focusing on the origin stories of two League champions. Separately, a documentary about League of Legends, Origins, is now available on Netflix, shedding light on the game's beginnings and massive growth.
With this flurry of new announcements, Riot has quite a busy year lined up filled with new games. We will have to see how the transition from being a primarily MOBA developer into a multi-platform multi-genre studio fare for Riot going forward. At any rate, the League of Legends universe just got a whole lot bigger.
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