League of Legends will finally come to iOS, Android and console, offering a fresh gaming experience from the ground up.
Wild Rift has been causing a lot of excitement in the League of Legends community. Many have been wanting to play the massively successful MOBA on alternative devices and finally, consoles. Now, they got their wish. Confirmed during the League of Legends tenth anniversary, Wild Rift offers to bring a ground-up authentic experience to mobile devices and consoles in 2020.
We have seen plenty of gameplay from a variety of Riot social media channels, so good news! We’ve got you covered on what exactly Wild Rift is and some important questions you might want answered about the game here.
What is Wild Rift?
League of Legends Wild Rift is an upcoming MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) video game developed from the ground up by Riot Games for consoles and mobile devices. Mobile and console players will finally be able to experience the competitive PC game on the go or on home consoles. Riot Games claims Wild Rift aims to be more “streamlined for faster games” for mobile and console. It features an interesting duel-stick control scheme that has been exclusively designed for the new platforms.
What is the difference between PC LoL and Wild Rift LoL?
Wild Rift is pretty much the same as PC League of Legends as gameplay should be kept authentic but of course, there will be some slight differences due to Wild Rift being completely rebuilt for mobile and console.
Naturally, you can expect some of the now 146 strong (as of January 2020) champions to have their skills and kits altered to make it more balanced for mobile and consoles. In the Riot Games Wild Rift trailer, you can see that Ashe can now control her Enchanted Crystal Arrow ultimate instead of it being completely uncontrollable on PC. Sorry, PC players. I’m sure that if you ask Riot nicely enough. they might include it on their Rito Pls list. The level cap is also set to 15 instead of 18 within the game itself, as it seems Riot is going for that faster game experience mentioned in the quote above, with average games expected to last between 15 to 20 min.
Which champions will I be able to play in Wild Rift?
As of the writing this article, there are 30 playable champions with a total of 40 (the other 10 are not confirmed by Riot as of yet). We can expect those other 10 to arrive in later updates for the game. The confirmed starting 30 are:
- Ahri
- Alistar
- Annie
- Ashe
- Blitzcrank
- Dr. Mundo
- Ezreal
- Fiora
- Garen
- Gragas
- Janna
- Jax
- Jinx
- Lux
- Malphite
- Master Yi
- Miss Fortune
- Nami
- Nasus
- Olaf
- Shyvana
- Soraka
- Tyndamere
- Twisted Fate
- Varus
- Vayne
- Vi
- Xin Zhao
- Yasuo
- Ziggs
We’ll pour one out for you if your main wasn’t mentioned in that list (I’m sad Riven wasn’t mentioned), but keep an eye out on Early Game as we’ll continue to update you on all things Wild Rift.
Why Mobile and Console?
If it wasn’t obvious, League of Legends is incredibly popular. With millions of active players per month and hundreds of millions of views in its esports scene after ten years on PC only, it doesn’t surprise anyone that Riot Games would want to target another very large market, namely mobile and console players.
Another addition from Riot Games worth pointing out was another big reason they created this game:
“Many players have been telling us that League PC experience is sometimes tough to fit into their lives”
They’re not wrong about that. The average PC League of Legends games can sometimes go on for up to an hour, which is impossible to keep up for anyone with a busy daily schedule.
When can we expect Wild Rift to be released?
You can expect League of Legends Wild Rift to be released in 2020! A closed beta finished at the end of 2019, so we can assume a build of the game will be ready very soon. If you need a refresher on the Wild Rift trailer we’ve got you covered!
Final thoughts
Even after ten years, Riot Games continues to push League of Legends onwards and still makes it look fresh. What will be interesting to see will be how the games play and feel on console and mobile – load times, skillshots, mastery tree and so on. As a long-time League of Legends player with a very busy life schedule, I’m extremely happy about the quicker game times and shorter loading times. Of course, we’ll have to wait and see how it really plays out in 2020.
