Riot cracks down on VPN usage in League of Legends: Wild Rift

This is bad news for fans outside the open beta regions.

Image via Riot Games

League of Legends: Wild Rift’s open beta has only been released in Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand. This hasn’t stopped players from around the world to use virtual private networks (VPNs) to play the MOBA game.

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This may not be possible anymore, though. Riot Games announced today it is bringing some changes to VPN logins across all its games. The biggest impact of this change will be on users playing Wild Rift in a non-beta region.

Riot said that due to players from around the world accessing the beta regions’ servers through VPNs, a lot of problems are being created. This includes inconveniences like language barriers and even “unplayable lag spikes” for everyone.

Riot added it has “explored ways to protect the game experience” and has decided that the best way is to prevent VPN access from the “highest volume VPN services outside the beta regions.” This change is effective immediately. More VPN services could also be suspended in the future.

“It kills us to turn off access to anyone, but we think this is the right move to make sure players in the beta can enjoy Wild Rift the way it was intended to be played,” Riot said.

This change will not affect players who are already in the open beta regions and use a VPN to play the game.

League of Legends: Wild Rift will be expanding to Europe and other parts of Asia in early December. It will be released in North America, South America, and India in spring 2021.

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Wasif Ahmed
Covering mobile games and their esports scene.