Last week, Riot announced it would be laying off 530 employees. As a result, smaller projects will be discontinued. This includes Riot Forge. For MeinMMO author Nikolas Hernes, this is a significant loss, as the smaller games have shown the potential that lies within the world of League of Legends.
Riot Forge was a label led by Riot Games that published games from indie developers who were allowed to play around with the LoL license. In total, it brought out 5 different titles, each catering to a different genre. All with the subtitle A League of Legends Story
.
The scenarios and the champions depicted also differed from one another. With Ruined King, there was a JRPG-inspired role-playing game. Song of Nunu gave us a narrative 3D adventure, while Convergence and Mageseeker explored the typical indie genres of Metroidvania and Action-RPG.
Now, all of that is history, and the title Bandle Tale
will soon be the last game from this label. This makes me sad because, aside from Arcane, there are hardly any opportunities left to explore the LoL world better.
One of the indie games was Convergence:
A Lore That Simply Isn’t Utilized
The League of Legends lore is vast. There are different realms, factions, and within the locations, there are smaller stories as well. But all of this is told relatively dryly.
While champion descriptions and interactions in League of Legends are quite cool, the stories are not told fresh and excitingly. Reading a simple text is just not as thrilling as discovering a story for yourself.
The games from Riot Forge offered much more. In Ruined King, I could explore the pirate city of Bilgewater with its inhabitants. Through dialogues and small side quests, I could form a picture of the criminal place. The interactions between the various party members gave the champions I knew much more character and, above all, lore.
The card game from Riot Legends of Runeterra
is also significantly affected by the layoffs. The game had the opportunity to add small characters to the lore through many new cards, without having to design comprehensive champions. You can see soldiers from the various factions or simply the little son of the champion Malphite.
The Dream of Other Genres
Through Riot Forge, many ideas have grown for me and my friends that one can fill with the Riot universe. A classic strategy game with different factions. A character action game like Devil May Cry or Hi-Fi Rush. Or simply a shooter. These wishes are becoming distant due to the closure of the label.
When I look at how many different games are released in the Warhammer universe, I’m envious that Riot isn’t trying the same. Sure, not all the best games come out of it, but a certain willingness to experiment can also expand the player base and attract people who don’t usually play MOBAs.
Arcane has managed to reach many people and raise awareness of the LoL world among viewers. Characters like Jinx or Vi are simply much more present, and that is thanks to the series. A last glimmer of hope to explore the world of Runeterra better is the MMORPG. But this was not mentioned in the last statement, and the latest news has not been very positive:
The greater focus on the 4 core games could, of course, lead to significant improvements, but creativity and the potential of Runeterra suffer enormously due to the closure. We can only hope that Arcane Season 2 will satisfactorily expand the Runeterra world and that we will still get other projects in the LoL universe.
What do you think of Riot Forge? And what genres or games would you like to see in the LoL universe? Let us know in the comments. More information about the current layoffs at Riot can be found here:
