A console and mobile version of League of Legends is in the works from Riot Games.
According to a new report from Polygon, the developer revealed the new title as part of a slew of new game announcements made today during its 10th-anniversary celebration.
League of Legends: Wild Rift is not just the PC version running on smartphones — Riot is adapting the game for touch devices with some key changes. The map is also slightly different to facilitate shorter matches, so instead of spending 45 minutes in a battle, Riot is going for something closer to 15-to-20 minutes.
“Wild Rift is not a port of LoL on PC,” said Riot Games in a press release. “It is a new game built from scratch to ensure it is a polished, legitimate LoL experience that’s worth players’ time.”
The gameplay has been completely redesigned around twin sticks and it is different enough that cross-play between this and the PC title won’t be possible. Riot, however, is exploring the possibility of cross-platform play between the mobile versions and the console versions of the game. There’ll also be rewards for PC players who try it out, with unspecified bonuses based on the time invested in the PC game.
There will be “around” 40 champions at launch, with more coming later. Riot Games states that much like the original game on PC, this title will be free-to-play and never pay-to-win, so you can likely expect microtransactions to be limited to cosmetic items like skins.
The League of Legends: Wild Rift alpha and beta will begin later this year, starting in China. In 2020 the game will begin to release region by region, with a full global rollout on mobile planned before the end of the year. The console edition will come sometime after that.
You can sign up for the open beta now on the Wild Rift website, and be sure to check out the announcement trailer below.
