Surprisingly, Riot Games announced the Open Beta for one of their new games, Legends of Runeterra. Players were actually hoping for a release date of League of Legends: Wild Rift; instead, LoR will head into Open Beta on January 24th for PC. According to Andrew Yip and Jeff Jew (Design Director and Executive Producer), the mobile version will follow within the first half of 2020 as well.
Back in 2019, a first pre-view over 10 days already gave players some insight into the basic gameplay. While Riot Games planned on continuing similar Closed Beta tests, the large number of pre-registrations and feedback from players who desperately wanted to try out the game convinced the devs to go for an open release.
Legends of Runeterra: Gameplay
As Digital Collectible Card Game, LoR combines a strategic card game experience with the League of Legends universe. Similar to TFT and LoL, Legends of Runeterra will feature a competitive Ranked mode, starting with the Open Beta.
Players face each other 1 versus 1 in a match with the goal to outlast their opponents. Each player has their own deck, consisting of a broad variety of cards that feature LoL characters. At the start of the game, both gain 20 health points for their nexus and whoever sets the HP of the enemy to zero first will claim victory. Also, every player starts the game with 0 mana and will gain one mana gem per turn.
Aside from classic 1v1s, the devs plan on a variety of expansions and gamemodes as well as newly introduced card sets.
What’s different to other card games?
While Legends of Runeterra shares similar features to existing games like Hearthstone, the devs also pointed out that they want to bybass typical issues of card games: Once you climb up to the next higher Rank, you can’t demote but earn the Rank for the rest of the season. Also, they want to prevent static meta experience where players are forced to play specific types of card decks in order to succeed.
Like every other Riot Game, LoR won’t be pay to play nor pay to win. Instead, you’ll be able to customize your gameplay by buying skins or accessories.
Check out the full video for more detailed information:
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So, are you going to play Legends of Runeterra during the Open Beta? Have you pre-registered already?
