For months, fans have speculated that Riot Games may be pivoting its focus from League of Legends, which has remained its poster child for years, to its other popular title, VALORANT. Yet with more strange decisions being made regarding the game and its professional scene, questions remained unanswered and the future of League grew more and more uncertain.
Following this period of speculation and near-unanimous negative responses to League’s season 2023 opening cinematic that was released earlier today, Riot has issued a statement regarding issues surrounding the creation of the video, as well as its hope to be more transparent with fans throughout the year regarding the game’s future.
Riot firstly acknowledged that it believed this year’s cinematic, following the trend of those released at the beginning of each year to highlight the game’s advancing lore and many recognizable characters, would “still embody [the game’s] universe” despite heading in a massively different direction than what had been anticipated as standard. It noted that there were “unprecedented circumstances” involving the creation of the video, though specifics have not been provided.
“Brink of Infinity missed the mark for the action-packed, champion-led trailer you expected and has led to further speculation about our investment in League,” Riot wrote.
The company explained that the feeling of its loss of interest in League among the community over the past few months is valid due to the lack of communication it had with the player base. But Riot hinted that there is much still to come for League and that a bit of the plans in store for the game will be revealed “in the next couple of days.”
League’s 2023 season officially started today, introducing a variety of changes to champions and items, as well as fully implementing the new features featured in the preseason. The ranked ladder opens tomorrow and will run until this summer, when the second half of the ranked season begins.
