It’s almost 10 years to the day when Summoner’s Rift crashed into the world, forever changing the landscape for esports and multiplayer gaming. While it wasn’t the first DOTA spinoff to hit the market, the impact it’s had in those intervening years cannot be disputed – especially not in October, of all months, with the World Championship hogging viewercounts all over Twitch.tv and YouTube.
As can only be expected for the decennial, there’s a lot of anticipation for the various announcements Riot’s expected to make in celebration of the longevity of their game (and company). Here’s everything we know to expect thus far.
Gameplay Changes
Summoner’s Rift, it seems, will be getting more than a mere facelift for its 10th birthday. Per Riot Games’ recent Nexus blog update, they have ambitious plans to change the game feel for their primary map. Not only will there be the usual gameplay and balance tweaks, with a particular focus on a Mastery update, but the map itself will be retailored for what they claim to be “new layers of depth to the map itself to evolve it into more than a static backdrop in your games.”
Though more detailed descriptions have yet to emerge, the blog hints that this will be similar in function to the elemental drakes, added back in 2016. The plants now in the game that allow vision, movement, and healing can also be considered precursors.
Teamfight Tactics Changes
Four months ago, during Teamfight Tactics’ initial launch, Riot listed out what to expect from them regarding the game’s content and balance updates. Thus far, we’ve gotten half of what’s been promised – new characters trickled in at the pace of one every couple weeks to keep things fresh and compositions dynamic.
The second half is for the release of a whole new set of champions, throwing all expectations back to zero. Teamfight Tactics Set 2 is promised as part of the 10th Anniversary announcements. Their teaser image for this is none other than Amumu, whose gigantic AOE stun will likely prove just as terrifying in TFT as it is on Summoner’s Rift.
If you’re getting bored of 4/6 Knights, this will likely be music to your ears.
Rumors
Beyond what is known for sure is, of course, a whole litany of whispers and secrets. The worst-kept of such secrets is that Riot Games’ acquisition of Radiant Entertainment back in 2016 was aimed towards the development of an in-house fighting game, and this was re-confirmed by long-time FGC community leader Tom Cannon back at Evo this year.
Breaking: EVO founder and Riot employee Tom Cannon has confirmed the worst kept secret in gaming - Riot is officially working on a fighting game, the first game outside of League of Legends for Riot pic.twitter.com/P3BGaVs4u4
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher)
August 2, 2019
A new champion announcement is also hotly anticipated – due in no small part to the teasers released by Riot this week. But alongside Senna, Lucian’s long-lost wife, the community is also expecting a new musical number from the studio, featuring a new fictitious band called “True Damage.”
Finally, fashion icon Louis Vuitton announced their World Championship collaboration with Riot Games last month, but had not yet gone into detail as to what that partnership entails. Though we know it involves a new facelift to the championship cup, more was teased during the initial announcement.
“Louis Vuitton and Riot Games also will soon announce unique champion skins and a capsule collection designed by Nicolas Ghesquière, Louis Vuitton’s Artistic Director of Women’s collections, along with other League of Legends digital assets.”
We will learn if this is part of the 10th Anniversary celebration, and whatever else Riot has in store, on October 15th.
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Written ByJames Chen@Obscurica
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