League of Legends is one of the most popular and well-known games of the 21st century: here is when League came out and everything that happened at the beginning.
Image Credits | Riot Games
When did League of Legends came out?
League of Legends is one of the first big game titles of the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre, leading to the rise of the game genre and the release of similar games like Smite and Heroes of the Storm.
The game was officially released on October 27, 2009. It was initially developed for previews in 2007 but it had to wait until the developers found a deal with Tencent in 2008. LoL was initially launched as a free-to-play game with 40 champions to start, including champions like Annie, Master Yi, and Warwick. All these champions had relatively easy kits to play, making the learning process for new players better.
Throughout the early years of League of Legends, Riot worked hard to expand the champion roster, pushing out new characters to make the game more engaging. In the following year, 24 new champions were added while experimenting with new concepts and different types of abilities.
The game continued to grow and from 2011 to 2013, the devs introduced more and more creative characters with well-designed kits and incredible storytelling. It ultimately helped grow the player base of League of Legends to what has become today. In particular, some of the characters seen in the Netflix Series Arcane have been added in this period:
Caitlyn – January 2011
Viktor – December 2011
Jayce – July 2012
Vi – December 2012
Jinx – October 2013
All the new champions helped shape the game’s landscape. Most importantly, however, the developers put a lot of resources into many other elements of the map. The map was given a graphical and technical update on May 23, 2012, and it was later remade from scratch at the end of season 4. With the start of season 5 and the new ranked season, the new Summoner’s Rift made it to the live servers, which is the map used up until now, nearly 8 years later.
Read also: LoLdle Quote of the day
League of Legends mobile version – Wild Rift
League of Legends became so popular that Riot decided to bring a mobile version to cater to non-PC gamers throughout the world. League of Legends: Wild Rift was launched at the end of 2020 on October 27 for both Android and IOS users.
The game offers similar gameplay to the PC version with some adaptations, making the game faster and having a reduced map size. The game is a lot more accelerated with games averaging closer to 15 minutes (compared to the 30 minutes of the PC version). The devs have brought the same champions from PC by slightly tweaking the kits: the characters would maintain a similar concept but the abilities would have different effects to accommodate for the mobile gaming experience. According to activeplayer.io, the average monthly player base of League of Legends: Wild Rift is around 15 million users while the PC version is close to 150 million.
Read also: LoL Tier List
About Post Author
