On the 10th Anniversary of League of Legends, Riot Games announced that their 5v5 MOBA game will be releasing for Mobile and Console under the banner of League of Legends: Wild Rift. The reaction of the community was overwhelming, the hype that the announcement built up was massive and literally all types of gamers were eager to witness the legacy of Riot Games’ world-famous MOBA on newer platforms. With Wild Rift regional Alpha play-tests around the corner, on 28th May, 2020, Summer Game Fest announced that they will be streaming the gameplay reveal. So we thought that it was the best opportunity to bring to you guys some small insight that we take back from this gameplay reveal and what you can expect from the game when it launches in your region. So let’s dive right in and see what the Gameplay reveal leaves us with.
Regional Android Alpha starting next week
The regional android alpha play-tests for League of Legends: Wild Rift will be starting in Brazil and Philippines will be starting from June 6. And it will last until June 27. However, players will not be able to play the game during the first 3 days. Servers will be only available from 6 PM to 10 PM each day. For more information on the alpha test, you can check here.
League of Legends: Wild Rift First Impression
Champions
The Riot dev team have been thoroughly building and redesigning the champions from League of Legends PC to fit into the setting of Wild Rift. They mentioned that they wanted to retain the original feel of the game while adjusting to the smaller map, faster game pace and the dual-stick controls. Thus they had to tweak a few different champions in order to fit them in, they had to make few changes to some champions like Nasus, Miss Fortune and Twisted Fate. They claim to have invested a lot into targeting and aiming. David Xu, the product manager for Champions on Wild Rift, stated in the live stream that they are currently working on some new mechanics which they plan to roll out subsequently. The Alpha will be launching with around 36 of the champions from League of Legends PC, the champions showcased in the live stream looked very good in terms of design and me being a LOL PC player, barely spotted any difference in the character model designs.
Gameplay
“Wild Rift still has the phases of a League game that you would expect but shortened to 15 or 20 minutes, from last hitting and trading in the laning phase, to setting up the perfect gank, to fighting over that crucial Dragon, to clutch team fights.”
Jonathan Chao, Gameplay and Balance team lead for Wild Rift.
As said by Jonathan Chao, the gameplay remains almost similar just has been adjusted to suit the faster game pace of Wild Rift. Some notable changes that we see are the two stages of Brambleback and Sentinel jungle camps which will evolve after a certain time in the game and will provide a greater bonus when killed.
The champion select screen looks very identical to that of League of Legend’s and they seem to have preserved the ‘two summoner spells’ system from League. The shop interface looks pretty different from League where we see multiple tabs for easier navigation of the shop. The items will mostly be identical to the ones from League of Legends PC and so will be their effects. One big doubt for me was about active items, that too is present in the game but every player is limited to hold only one active item each at a time. Jonathan also mentioned that they have brought in some new items exclusively for wild rift. A quick buy popup has also been added when you return to your base so you can get back to your lane faster. The warding mechanics also looked very good and looked fairly easy too. One notable change was in the jungler role, where you get to choose between challenging and chilling smite after clearing 4 major jungle camps. The rune system also has been tweaked a bit and some new runes have been added too.
Skins
To be honest, Riot has done a great work on the skins. Their work literally blasted through my expectations. The live stream showcased a few of the skins namely Foxfire Ahri, Demon vi, Battle Boss Blitzcrank, Secret Agent Xin Zhao, Cowgirl Miss Fortune, Glacial Malphite, Arclight Vayne and High Noon Jhin. Christina Wun, even said in their live stream that they are in the process of designing many more skins. These skins and their designing looked and the animation quality looked really great, enticing and very cool overall.
Final thoughts
As a League of Legends PC player, I am personally very mesmerized by this venture of Riot Games as it not only widens their market but also extends the unadulterated experience of MOBA to the Console and Mobile Platforms. The interaction of the game on the Mobile screen and on Console is something I’m very interested to experience. The gameplay seems to be tweaked so as to benefit newer players who are just starting off with the game. This is a crucial evolution of the game as many players have previously commented that the PC game felt really tough to learn at times. So this time around, the devs have clearly made it easier to learn but surely the ceiling for mastery remains high as usual. We can expect a very original yet completely new experience playing it on platforms other than PC. The experience stays original as the objective of the Game remains the same and the map is also very similar to the classic Summoner’s Rift with some minor tweaks here and there. And the method of controlling and interacting with the game changes to a dual-stick control instead of the old keyboard and mouse which gives a completely new experience for League players as a whole.
Are you excited about the League of Legends Wild Rift regional alpha? Do let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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