Despite every game of League of Legends taking place within the friendly confines of Summoner’s Rift, the world outside the game’s sole map is massive, and the lore of League is something many of the game’s players will live and die for. With that in mind, Riot is taking a closer look at the League universe’s canon, even going as far to update the way it approaches the game’s lore altogether.
In a developer update posted by Riot earlier today, LoL leads Jeremy “Brightmoon” Lee and Andrei “Meddler” Van Roon did a deep dive on the future of the game, addressing key features and developments Riot is working on. Among them, the lore of League was addressed extensively, and moving forward, the LoL devs have big plans to make the entirety of the League universe exist within “one shared canon.”
According to Laura DeYoung, the head of IP creative at Riot Games, the studio has taken a deep look at League’s storytelling strategies over the last few years and is working to address “inconsistencies that have woven their way into the storytelling and worldbuilding of Runeterra.”
With that in mind, the devs are making an effort to tie up loose ends and weave threads between parts of the universe that maybe didn’t exist before. With so many champions, regions, skin lines, and alternate universes, the game (and its world) run the risk of becoming completely spread-out and hard to wrap your head around.
“That kind of fragmentation makes the world feel less believable and it just undercuts meaningful character development,” DeYoung said. “And frankly, it makes it hard for all of you to feel like you can really invest deeply in the story knowing it might not be honored in future storytelling.”
Although this effort to make League’s lore more consistent will be a “gradual process,” according to DeYoung, players and fans should expect the game’s story to be far more consistent across all of Riot’s products, even those outside of the base game. Side stories like Arcane will all exist under the same lore umbrella.
A big addition to the League universe’s canon will come at the start of the 2024 ranked season when the new season start cinematic releases. “We’re going to make sure that they’re an integrated part of our world and storytelling,” Lee reassured LoL fans.
