Here’s our first real look at League of Legends: Wild Rift

Coming to mobile and consoles

Riot Games is on a roll.

As we’ve talked about many times before, their host of new projects are finally coming to fruition. “Code names” no more, Valorant is poised to be released soon and make a splash in the esports scene, with Runeterra freshly launched, having already made an impact on the digital card game genre. So what’s next? Well they have their fighter on the horizon, and Wild Rift: a mobile and console-ized version of League of Legends proper.

Thanks to a gameplay reveal this morning from the Summer Game Fest event, we now have a better idea of how Wild Rift will play. As a bit of background, Wild Rift was originally revealed last October, and is still slated for a “2020” release. The gist is to bring a more compact version of the MOBA to alternative platforms outside of PC, with “15-20 minute matches.” That’s down from the average length of a regular League match, which is roughly 30 minutes according to some data-gathering sites.

The main goal, Riot says, is to make Wild Rift accessible to everyone, to the point where folks get their friends to play it when they otherwise would have felt alienated by the original. It’ll also be “free of cheats and cheaters and lag-free,” feature a slightly smaller map and a pared-down (for now) “alpha roster” of characters with “lots more coming in the near future.”

Riot says it’s “invested a ton in aiming and targeting,” as well as “new technology [they] aren’t talking about yet.” Some characters get full-on reworks, with tweaks to stats like attack speed or turning certain abilities into skill shots (Miss Fortune was shown as an example). Other characters, like Janna, will have “near-identical” gameplay compared to their PC counterparts. 

Wild Rift‘s rune system (loadouts) has been reworked, with eight keystone runes and three minor runes. The new map is still three lanes, and is appropriately called “Wild Rift.” Mechanics like warding (map sight) and jungling (Wild Rift will have different creeps) remain intact. Items “might be tuned differently,” but they will be fundamentally the same compared to their PC counterparts. There’s also a “quick buy” mechanic to help facilitate the speedy nature of the game.

Tutorials and vs. AI modes are in, as well as skins. About that! Riot addresses the microtransaction concern directly, noting that there aren’t going to be “daily popups” and the like. Instead, the business model is said to be just like the PC version, where all Champions (characters) are free, with skins serving as the backbone of the game’s monetization.

You can get a good look at the gameplay for yourself (and the roster announcement) below, as well as the minimum required specs for phones and confirmation that you’ll need an iPhone 6 or better to play it. For those who are interested, there will be a Philippines alpha test that begins on June 6.

Regional Alpha minimum specs: 
Android phones only
CPU: 8 Core, 1.5 GHz and above, 64-bit processors only
RAM: 3GB and above
Resolution: 1280 × 720 and above

Launch minimum spec targets:
Android phones
CPU: 4-core, 1.5 Ghz and above, 32-bit or 64-bit processors
RAM: 1.5GB and above
Resolution: 1280 × 720 and above

iOS phones:
iPhone 6 and above