In the game's main mode, Summoner's Rift, two teams of five players battle inplayer-versus-player combat. Each player controls a character, known as a "champion", with unique abilities and styles of play. During a match, champions become more powerful by collectingexperience points, earning gold, and purchasingitems to defeat the opposing team. Teams defend their base and win by pushing toward the enemy base and destroying a large structure within it, the "Nexus".
League of Legends has received generally favorable reviews, which have highlighted its accessibility, character designs, and production value. The game's long lifespan has resulted in a critical reappraisal, with reviews trending favorably; it is widely considered one of thegreatest video games ever made. But rude and abusive in-game player behavior, criticized since the game's early days, persists despite Riot's attempts to fix the problem. In 2019,League regularly peaked at eight million concurrent players, and its popularity has led to tie-ins such as music, comic books, short stories, and the animated seriesArcane. Its success has spawned severalspin-off video games, including amobile version, adigital collectible card game, and aturn-based role-playing game, amongothers. AnMMORPG based on the property is in development.
Four champions in the bottom lane of Summoner's Rift, surrounded by minions. The red health bars indicate that they are opposing players.
League of Legends is amultiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game in which the player controls a character ("champion") with a set of unique abilities from anisometric perspective.[2][3] During a match, champions gain levels by accruingexperience points (XP) through killing enemies.[4] Items can be acquired to increase champions' strength,[5] and are bought with gold, which players accrue passively over time and earn actively by defeating the opposing team's minions,[2] champions, or defensive structures.[4][5] In the main game mode, Summoner's Rift, items are purchased through a shop menu available to players only when their champion is in the team's base.[2] Each match is discrete; levels and items do not transfer from one match to another.[6]
Summoner's Rift
A simplified representation of Summoner's Rift. The yellow paths are the "lanes" down which minions march; blue and red dots represent turrets. The fountains are the dark areas within each base, and are beside each Nexus. The dotted black line indicates the river.
Summoner's Rift is the flagship game mode ofLeague of Legends and the most prominent inprofessional-level play.[7][8][9] The mode has a ranked competitive ladder; a matchmaking system determines a player's skill level and generates a starting rank from which they can climb. There are ten tiers; the least skilled are Iron, Bronze, and Silver, and the highest are Master, Grandmaster, and Challenger.[10][a]
Two teams of five players compete to destroy the opposing team's "Nexus", which is guarded by the enemy champions and defensive structures known as "turrets".[13] Each team's Nexus is in its base, where players start the game and reappear after death.[13]Non-player characters known as minions are generated from each team's Nexus and advance toward the enemy base along three lanes guarded by turrets: top, middle, and bottom.[14] Each team's base contains three "inhibitors", one behind the third tower from the center of each lane. Destroying an enemy team's inhibitor causes stronger allied minions tospawn in that lane and allows the attacking team to damage the enemy Nexus and the two turrets guarding it.[15] The regions in between the lanes are known as the "jungle", which is inhabited by "monsters" that, like minions, respawn at regular intervals. Like minions, monsters provide gold and XP when killed.[16] Another, more powerful class of monster resides within the river that separates each team's jungle.[17] These monsters require multiple players to defeat and grant special abilities to their slayers' team. For example, teams can gain a powerful allied unit after killing the Rift Herald, permanent strength boosts by killing dragons, and stronger, more durable minions by killing Baron Nashor.[18]
Summoner's Rift matches can last from 15 minutes to over an hour.[19] The game does not dictate where players may go, but conventions have arisen: typically one player goes in the top lane, one in the middle lane, one in the jungle, and two in the bottom lane.[2][4][20] Players in a lane kill minions to accumulate gold and XP (termed "farming") and try to prevent their opponent from doing the same. A fifth champion, known as a "jungler", farms the jungle monsters and, when powerful enough, assists their teammates in a lane.[21]
Other modes
Besides Summoner's Rift,League of Legends has two other permanent game modes. ARAM ("All Random, All Mid") is a five-versus-five mode like Summoner's Rift, but on a map called Howling Abyss with only one long lane, no jungle area, and champions randomly chosen for players.[22][23][24] Given the small size of the map, players must be vigilant in avoiding enemy abilities.[25]
Teamfight Tactics is anauto battler released in June 2019 and made a permanent game mode the next month.[26][27] As with others in its genre, players build a team and battle to be the last one standing. Players do not directly affect combat but position their units on a board for them to fight automatically against opponents each round.[28]Teamfight Tactics is available foriOS andAndroid and hascross-platform play with the Windows and macOS clients.[29]
Other game modes have been made available temporarily, typically aligning with in-game events.[30][31] Ultra Rapid Fire (URF) mode was available for two weeks as a 2014April Fools Day prank. In the mode, champion abilities have no resource cost, significantly reduced cooldown timers, increased movement speed, reduced healing, and faster attacks.[32][33] In April 2015, Riot disclosed that it had not brought the mode back because its unbalanced design resulted in player "burnout". Riot also said the costs associated with maintaining and balancing URF were too high.[34] Other temporary modes include One for All and Nexus Blitz. One for All has players pick a champion for all members of their team to play.[35][36] In Nexus Blitz, players participated in a series ofmini-games on a compressed map.[37]
Development
Pre-release
Riot Games's West Los Angeles headquarters
Riot Games's founders Brandon Beck and Marc Merill had an idea for a spiritual successor toDefense of the Ancients, known asDotA. Amod forWarcraft III: Reign of Chaos,DotA required players to buyWarcraft III and install custom software;The Washington Post's Brian Crecente said the mod "lacked a level of polish and was often hard to find and set up".[38] Phillip Kollar ofPolygon noted thatBlizzard Entertainment supportedWarcraft III with anexpansion pack, then shifted their focus to other projects while the game still had players. Beck and Merill sought to create a game that would be supported over a significantly longer period.[39]
Beck and Merill held aDotA tournament for students at theUniversity of Southern California, with an ulterior goal of recruitment. There they met Jeff Jew, later a producer onLeague of Legends. Jew was very familiar withDotA and spent much of the tournament teaching others how to play. Beck and Merill invited him to an interview, and he joined Riot Games as an intern.[38] Beck and Merill recruited two figures involved withDotA: Steve Feak, one of its designers,[38] and Steve Mescon, who ran a support website to assist players.[40][41] Feak said early development was highly iterative, comparing it to designingDotA.[42]
A demonstration ofLeague of Legends built in theWarcraft III game engine was completed in four months and then shown at the 2007Game Developers Conference.[39] There, Beck and Merill had little success with potential investors. Publishers were confused by the game's free-to-play business model and lack of a single-player mode. The free-to-play model was untested outside of Asian markets,[38] so publishers were primarily interested in a retail release, and the game's capacity for asequel.[39] In 2008, Riot reached an agreement with holding companyTencent to oversee the game's launch in China.[39]
League of Legends was announced on October 7, 2008, forMicrosoft Windows.[43][44]Closed beta-testing began in April 2009.[43][45] Upon the launch of the beta, 17 champions were available.[46] Riot initially aimed to ship the game with 20 champions but doubled the number before the game's full release in North America on October 27, 2009.[47][48] The game's full name was announced asLeague of Legends: Clash of Fates. Riot planned to use the subtitle to signal when future content was available, but decided it was silly and dropped it before launch.[39]
Post-release
League of Legends receives regular updates in the form ofpatches. Although previous games had utilized patches to ensure no one strategy dominated,League of Legends' patches made keeping pace with the developer's changes a core part of the game. In 2014, Riot standardized its patch cadence to once approximately every two or three weeks.[49] These updates change the effectiveness of strategies within the game, known as themetagame; update content is determined by the developer using a combination of gameplay data and product goals.[50]
The development team includes hundreds of game designers and artists. In 2016, the music team had four full-time composers and a team of producers creating audio for the game and its promotional materials.[51] As of 2025[update], the game has 172 champions,[52] and Riot Games periodically overhauls the visuals and gameplay of the oldest in the roster.[53] Although only available for Microsoft Windows at launch, aMac version of the game was made available in 2013.[54]
Since May 2023, the game uses Riot's custom always-online anti-cheat software,Vanguard, on Microsoft Windows devices.[55] Originally developed by Riot for its tactical shooterValorant (2020), Vanguard requires access to the device'skernel, which some users saw as unnecessarily intrusive.[56] Vanguard does not collect user data or send it to Riot Games.[57] Following the anti-cheat's deployment, some players said Vanguardbricked their devices. The developer said this was caused by other problems, with only 0.03% of players reporting issues.[55]
In December 2025,Bloomberg News published a report stating Riot were planning a large-scale update to the game, internally titled "League Next".[58] The same day, the League of Legends team published a video responding to the report, and saying they intended to replace the game's client, improve onboarding for new users, and overhaul visuals. Both the report and video emphasised Riot's intention to make the game more beginner-friendly.[59]
Revenue model
League of Legends uses afree-to-play business model. Revenue is generated by selling cosmetic goods with no impact to gameplay. Several of these cosmetics—for example, "skins" that change the appearance of champions—can be redeemed after purchasing anin-game currency called Riot Points (RP).[60] As virtual goods, they have highprofit margins.[51] AnUbisoft analyst estimated in 2014 that 4% of players were paying customers—significantly lower than the industry standard—and suggested that revenue optimization was likely not a priority because of the game's large player base.[61] A 2016 analysis bySuperData estimated the game's monthly revenues at $150 million per month.[62] At the 2024Summer Game Fest, game director Pu Liu said that revenue is primarily generated by a "single-digit percentage" of players, colloquially known as whales.[63]
Skins have five basic tiers, ranging in cost from $4 to $25.[64] Riot Games added an additional skin tier toLeague of Legends in 2024, describing them as aluxury good. These skins cannot be purchased outright: instead, players buy attempts to win the skin via aslot machine.[65] Some commentators identified this as agacha game mechanic,[66][67] used by Riot since 2023 inTeamfight Tactics.[68] Players are guaranteed to acquire the skin after a predefined number of failed attempts.[69] The cost can range from $200 to $430.[70] Responses to early skins in this tier divided players.[71] The first was criticized for being a recolored variant of an existing skin,[72] known as a "chroma".[73] The developer released several more of these,[74] with aYouTube content creator known for showcasing upcoming skins for the company describing the tier as a "scam".[74][75]
One day after revealing a $430 "Hall of Fame" skin to honor the career of professional gamerFaker,[76] Riot announced layoffs at the company, impacting Ben Rosado—the cosmetic's designer—and eliciting further negative responses from players.[70][77] In early 2025, Riot announced a new skin in the tier that had been long requested by players.PC Gamer's Rick Lane described the strategy as "whale chasing" and "psychological manipulation". He said that the skins had been selected to "subtly" entice players into "rolling the dice", at which point thesunk-cost fallacy takes over. Lane described it as the latest in a series of monetization controversies for the developer.[78]
In November 2024, the studio said they would streamline player rewards in an upcoming patch, describing the game's various progression tracks and currencies as "needlessly complex".[79] The announcement caused widespread outrage. A viralReddit post estimated that free-to-play players must play the game for over 800 hours to unlock a single champion.[80] It was described byGamesRadar+ as the studio's "worst PR disaster in years".[81] In mid-January 2025, game director Andrei van Room said they had "screwed up", explaining that a designer forgot to include the "first win of the day" experience bonus in their calculations, causing unintended consequences.[82] The developer partially reverted some of the changes, including halving the cost of purchasing a champion, and the return of "hextech chests"[83]—aloot box system introduced in 2016. These are purchasable virtual "chests" that provide random cosmetics,[84] a practice that has been criticized as a form of gambling.[85]
Before 2014, players existed in-universe as political leaders, or "Summoners", commanding champions to fight on the Fields of Justice—for example, Summoner's Rift—to avert a catastrophic war.[86] Sociologist Matt Watson said the plot and setting were bereft of the political themes found in otherrole-playing games, and presented in reductive "good versus evil" terms.[87] In the game's early development, Riot did not hire writers, and designers wrote character biographies only a paragraph long.[39]
In September 2014, Riot Games rebooted the game'sfictional setting, removing summoners from the game's lore to avoid "creative stagnation".[86][88] Luke Plunkett wrote forKotaku that, although the change would upset long-term fans, it was necessary as the game's player base grew in size.[89] Shortly after the reboot, Riot hiredWarhammer writerGraham McNeill.[90] Riot's storytellers and artists createflavor text, adding "richness" to the game, but very little of this is seen as a part of normal gameplay. Instead, that work supplies a foundation for the franchise's expansion into other media,[51] such as comic books and spin-off video games.[91][92] The Fields of Justice were replaced by a new fictional setting—a planet called Runeterra. The setting has elements from several genres—fromLovecraftian horror to traditionalsword and sorcery fantasy.[93]
League of Legends received generally favorable reviews on its initial release, according toreview aggregator websiteMetacritic.[94] Many publications noted the game's highreplay value.[106][107][108]Kotaku reviewer Brian Crecente admired how items altered champion play styles.[108] Quintin Smith ofEurogamer concurred, praising the amount of experimentation offered by champions.[109] Comparing it toDefense of the Ancients, Rick McCormick ofGamesRadar+ said that playingLeague of Legends was "a vote for choice over refinement".[110]
Given the game's origins, other reviewers frequently compared aspects of it toDotA. According toGamesRadar+ andGameSpot,League of Legends would feel familiar to those who had already playedDotA.[97][111] The game's inventive character design and lively colors distinguished the game from its competitors.[103] Smith concluded his review by noting that, although there was not "much room for negativity", Riot's goal of refiningDotA had not yet been realized.[109]
Although Crecente praised the game's free-to-play model,[108]GameSpy's Ryan Scott was critical of thegrind required for non-paying players to unlock key gameplay elements, calling it unacceptable in a competitive game.[112][b] Many outlets said the game was underdeveloped.[107][103] A physical version of the game was available for purchase from retailers;GameSpot's Kevin VanOrd said it was an inadvisable purchase because the value included $10 of store credit for an unavailable store.[107] German siteGameStar noted that none of the bonuses in that version were available until the launch period had ended and refused to carry out a full review.[114]IGN's Steve Butts compared the launch to the poor state ofCrimeCraft's release earlier in 2009; he indicated that features available duringLeague of Legends's beta were removed for the release, even for those who purchased the retail version.[103] Matches took unnecessarily long to find for players, with longqueue times,[108][103][115] andGameRevolution mentioned frustrating bugs.[116]
Some reviewers addressed toxicity in the game's early history. Crecente wrote that the community was "insular" and "whiny" when losing.[108] Butts speculated thatLeague of Legends inherited many ofDotA's players, who had developed a reputation for being "notoriously hostile" to newcomers.[103]
Reassessment
Fancosplay of theLeague of Legends champion Nidalee
Regular updates to the game have resulted in a reappraisal by some outlets;IGN's second reviewer, Leah B. Jackson, explained that the website's original review had become "obsolete".[104] Two publications increased their original scores:GameSpot from 6 to 9,[99][100] andIGN from 8 to 9.2.[103][104] The variety offered by the champion roster was described by Steven Strom ofPC Gamer as "fascinating";[105] Jackson pointed to "memorable" characters and abilities.[104] Although the items had originally been praised at release by other outlets such asKotaku,[108] Jackson's reassessment criticized the lack of item diversity and viability, noting that the items recommended to the player by the in-game shop were essentially required because of their strength.[104]
While reviewers were pleased with the diverse array of play styles offered by champions and their abilities,[104][100][105] Strom thought that the female characters still resembled those in "hornyClash of Clans clones" in 2018.[105] Two years before Strom's review, a champion designer responded to criticism by players that a young, female champion was not conventionally attractive. He argued that limiting female champions to one body type was constraining and said progress had been made in Riot's recent releases.[117]
Comparisons persisted between the game and others in the genre.GameSpot's Tyler Hicks wrote that new players would pick upLeague of Legends quicker thanDotA and that the removal of randomness-based skills made the game more competitive.[100] Jackson calledLeague of Legends's rate of unlock for champions "a model of generosity", but less thanDotA's sequel,Dota 2 (2013), produced byValve, wherein characters are unlocked by default.[104] Strom said the game was fast-paced compared toDota 2's "yawning" matches, but slower than those of Blizzard Entertainment's "intentionally accessible" MOBAHeroes of the Storm (2015).[105]
League of Legends's player base has a longstanding reputation for "toxicity"—rude and abusive in-game behavior,[131][132][133] with a survey by theAnti-Defamation League indicating that 76% of players have experienced in-game harassment.[134] Riot Games has acknowledged the problem and responded that only a small portion of the game's players are consistently toxic. According to Jeffrey Lin, Riot's lead designer of social systems, most bad behavior is committed by players "occasionally acting out".[135] Several major systems have been implemented to tackle the issue. One is basic report functionality; players can report teammates or opponents who violate the game's code of ethics. The in-game chat is also monitored by algorithms that detect several types of abuse.[135] An early system was the "Tribunal"—players who met certain requirements were able to review reports sent to Riot. If enough players determined that the messages were a violation, an automated system would punish them.[136] Lin said that eliminating toxicity was an unrealistic goal, and the focus should be on rewarding good behavior.[137] To that end, Riot reworked the "Honor system" in 2017, allowing players to award teammates virtual medals after games for one of three positive attributes. Acquiring these medals increases a player's "Honor level", rewarding them with free loot boxes over time.[138]
League of Legends is one of the world's largest esports, described byThe New York Times as its "main attraction".[139] Online viewership and in-person attendance for the game's esports events outperformed those of theNational Basketball Association, theWorld Series, and theStanley Cup in 2016.[140] For the 2019 and 2020League of Legends World Championship finals, Riot Games reported 44 and 45 peak million concurrent viewers respectively.[141][142]Harvard Business Review said thatLeague of Legends epitomized the birth of the esports industry.[143]
As of April 2021[update], Riot Games operates 12 regional leagues internationally,[144][145][146] four of which—China,Europe,Korea, andNorth America—havefranchised systems.[147][148][149][150][151] In 2017, this system comprised 109 teams and 545 players.[152] League games are typicallylivestreamed on platforms such asTwitch andYouTube.[142] The company sells streaming rights to the game;[51] the North American league playoff is broadcast oncable television by sports networkESPN.[153] In China, the rights to stream international events such as theWorld Championships and theMid-Season Invitational were sold toBilibili in Fall 2020 for a three-year deal reportedly worth US$113 million,[154][155][156] while exclusive streaming rights for the domestic and other regional leagues are owned byHuya Live.[157] The game's highest-paid professional players have commanded salaries of above $1 million—over three times the highest-paid players ofOverwatch.[158] The scene has attracted investment from businesspeople otherwise unassociated with esports, such as retired basketball playerRick Fox, who foundedhis own team.[159] In 2020, his team's slot in the North American league was sold to theEvil Geniuses organization for $33 million.[160]
For the 10th anniversary ofLeague of Legends in 2019, Riot Games announced several games at various stages of production that were directly related to theLeague of Legendsintellectual property (IP).[161][162] A stand-alone version ofTeamfight Tactics was announced for mobile operating systems iOS and Android at the event and released in March 2020. The game has cross-platform play with the Windows and macOS clients.[29]Legends of Runeterra, a free-to-playdigital collectible card game, launched in April 2020 for Microsoft Windows; the game features characters fromLeague of Legends.[163][164][165]League of Legends: Wild Rift is a version of the game for mobile operating systems Android and iOS.[166] Instead ofporting the game fromLeague of Legends,Wild Rift's character models and environments were entirely rebuilt.[167] A single-player,turn-based role-playing game,Ruined King: A League of Legends Story, was released in 2021 forPlayStation 4,PlayStation 5,Xbox One,Xbox Series X/S,Nintendo Switch, and Windows.[92] It was the first title released under Riot Games's publishing arm,Riot Forge, wherein non-Riot studios develop games usingLeague of Legends characters.[168] In December 2020, Greg Street, vice-president of IP and Entertainment at Riot Games, announced that amassively multiplayer online role-playing game based on the game is in development.[169]Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story, a third-person adventure game revolving around the champion Nunu's search for his mother, with the help of the yeti Willump, was announced for a planned release in 2022. It is being developed byTequila Works, the creators ofRime.[170] It was released on Windows and the Nintendo Switch on November 1, 2023.[171]
Music
Riot Games's first venture into music was in 2014 with the virtualheavy metal bandPentakill, promoting a skin line of the same name.[172][173] Initially, Pentakill consisted of six champions: Kayle, Karthus, Mordekaiser, Olaf, Sona, and Yorick. In 2021, Viego was introduced to the group. Their music was primarily made by Riot Games's in-house music team but featured cameos byMötley Crüe drummerTommy Lee andDanny Lohner, a former member of industrial rock bandNine Inch Nails. Their second album,Grasp of the Undying, reached number one on theiTunes metal charts in 2017.[173]
Pentakill was followed byK/DA, avirtual K-popgirl group composed of four champions, Ahri, Akali, Evelynn, and Kai'sa. As with Pentakill, K/DA is promotional material for a skin line by the same name.[174] The group's debut single, "Pop/Stars", which premiered at the2018League of Legends World Championship, garnered over 400 million views on YouTube and sparked widespread interest from people unfamiliar withLeague of Legends.[175] In August 2020, Riot Games released "The Baddest", the pre-release single forAll Out, the five-trackEP from K/DA which followed in November that year.[176]
In 2019, Riot created a virtualhip hop group called True Damage,[177] featuring the champions Akali, Yasuo, Qiyana, Senna, and Ekko.[178] The vocalists—Keke Palmer,Thutmose,Becky G,Duckwrth, andSoyeon—performed a live version of the group's debut song, "Giants", during the opening ceremony of the2019League of Legends World Championship, alongside holographic versions of their characters.[178] The in-game cosmetics promoted by the music video featured a collaboration with fashion houseLouis Vuitton.[179]
In 2023, Riot formed Heartsteel, a virtualboy band, comprising the champions Aphelios, Ezreal, Kayn, K'Sante, Sett, and Yone. The vocalists areBaekhyun from the K-pop groupsExo andSuperM, Cal Scruby,ØZI, andTobi Lou. Heartsteel's debut single "Paranoia" was released in October of that year.[180]
Comics
Riot announced a collaboration withMarvel Comics in 2018.[91] Riot had previously experimented with releasing comics through its website.[181][182] Shannon Liao ofThe Verge noted that the comic books were "a rare opportunity for Riot to showcase its years of lore that has often appeared as an afterthought".[91] The first comic wasLeague of Legends: Ashe—Warmother, which debuted in 2018, followed byLeague of Legends: Lux that same year.[183] A print version of the latter was released in 2019.[184]
While celebratingLeague of Legends's tenth anniversary, Riot announced an animated television series,Arcane.[185] It was the company's first production for television,[186] and a collaboration between Riot Games and animation studioFortiche Production.[186] The series is set in the technologically advanced city of Piltover and its oppressed, underground sister city of Zaun.[186][187]Arcane explores adult themes and is not intended for children.[185] It features multiple playable characters fromLeague of Legends.Hailee Steinfeld stars asVi,Ella Purnell asJinx,Kevin Alejandro as Jayce, andKatie Leung as Caitlyn.[188]
After a delay caused by theCOVID-19 pandemic, the series premiered in November 2021 onNetflix internationally and throughTencent Video in China.[186] The first season received critical acclaim, winning fourEmmy Awards and nineAnnie Awards.[189] After the success of the first season, Riot hired former executives fromNetflix, HBO Max, andParamount Television Studios to expand its entertainment division,[190] and CEO Nicolo Laurent pledged to create an "entertainment company for the 21st century".[191] Ahead of the premiere of the second and final season,Variety reported that production and marketing costs forArcane's 18 episodes exceeded $250 million, making it the most expensive animated series ever made.[189]
Bloomberg News reported that Riot paid Netflix around $3 million for each episode aired and that the studio failed to convert the series' success into in-game revenue. Riot had no plan to recoup the show's costs but said the second season was "on track to break even".[192] The second season premiered in November 2024 to similar acclaim, winning seven Annie Awards in all nominated categories.[193]GKIDS produced home media releases of the first season in 2024, including a collector's edition DVD, a 4K UHD steelbook, andBlu-ray variants. The collector's edition, 4k UHD, and 4k Blu-ray variants for season 2 came out in 2025.[194]
Notes
^Earlier, there were seven tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, and Challenger. Iron and Grandmaster were added in 2018, and Emerald (a tier between Platinum and Diamond) in 2023.[11][12]
^Scott's review referenced a now-retired system of in-game bonuses to champions which could be slowly earned while playing or purchased outright with real money.[113]
^Watson, Max (Summer 2015)."A medley of meanings: Insights from an instance of gameplay in League of Legends"(PDF).Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology.6.1 (2068–0317): 233.Archived(PDF) from the original on December 29, 2020. RetrievedDecember 26, 2020.Similar to an RTS, players control the action from an isometric perspective, however, instead of controlling multiple units, each player only controls a single champion.
^Watson, Max (Summer 2015)."A medley of meanings: Insights from an instance of gameplay in League of Legends"(PDF).Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology.6.1 (2068–0317): 225.Archived(PDF) from the original on December 29, 2020. RetrievedDecember 26, 2020.[...] all champion experience, gold, and items are lost after an individual match is over [...]
^Gao, Gege; Min, Aehong; Shih, Patrick C. (November 28, 2017). "Gendered design bias: gender differences of in-game character choice and playing style in league of legends".Proceedings of the 29th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction. OZCHI '17. Brisbane, Australia: Association for Computing Machinery. p. 310.doi:10.1145/3152771.3152804.ISBN978-1-4503-5379-3.
^Wolf, Jacob (September 18, 2020)."League 101: A League of Legends beginner's guide".ESPN.Archived from the original on January 11, 2021. RetrievedDecember 23, 2020.Each team has 11 turrets. Every lane features two turrets in the lane, with a third at the end protecting the base and one of the three inhibitors. The last two turrets guard the Nexus and can only be attacked once an inhibitor is destroyed.
^Wolf, Jacob (September 18, 2020)."League 101: A League of Legends beginner's guide".ESPN.Archived from the original on January 7, 2021. RetrievedDecember 24, 2020.The last two turrets guard the Nexus and can only be attacked once an inhibitor is destroyed. Remember those minions? Take down an inhibitor and that lane will begin to spawn allied Super Minions, who do extra damage and present a difficult challenge for the enemy team.
^Wolf, Jacob (September 18, 2020)."League 101: A League of Legends beginner's guide".ESPN.Archived from the original on January 11, 2021. RetrievedDecember 25, 2020....a jungler kills various monsters in the jungle, like the Blue Buff, the Red Buff, Raptors, Gromps, Wolves and Krugs. Like minions, these monsters grant you gold and experience.
^Wolf, Jacob (September 18, 2020)."League 101: A League of Legends beginner's guide".ESPN.Archived from the original on January 7, 2021. RetrievedDecember 24, 2020.Getting strong enough to destroy the enemy Nexus comes with time. Games last anywhere from 15 minutes to, at times, even hours, depending on strategy and skill.
^Wolf, Jacob (September 18, 2020)."League 101: A League of Legends beginner's guide".ESPN.Archived from the original on October 26, 2020. RetrievedDecember 25, 2020.Junglers start in the jungle, with the sole goal of powering up their characters to become strong enough to invade one of the three lanes to outnumber the opponents in that lane.
^Kolan, Nick (July 26, 2011)."Ten League of Legends Games are Started Every Second".IGN.Archived from the original on October 17, 2019. RetrievedOctober 17, 2019.The free-to-play DotA-inspired multiplayer online battle arena [...] was released on October 27, 2009 [...]
^Kordyaka, Bastian; Hribersek, Sidney (January 8, 2019). "Crafting Identity in League of Legends – Purchases as a Tool to Achieve Desired Impressions".Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. p. 1508.doi:10.24251/HICSS.2019.182.hdl:10125/59591.ISBN978-0-9981-3312-6.Riot's main source of income is the sale of the in-game currency called Riot Points (RP). Players can buy virtual items using RPs, whereby the majority of them possesses no functional value (champion skins, accessories) and can be considered aesthetic items.
^Watson, Max (Summer 2015)."A medley of meanings: Insights from an instance of gameplay in League of Legends"(PDF).Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology.6 (1): 234.Archived(PDF) from the original on December 29, 2020. RetrievedDecember 26, 2020.Moreover, LoL's content and gameplay lack the [...] strong ties to real world issues [...] LoL does of course have a lore, but it recounts a fantastical alternate world which can often descend into hackneyed good and evil terms.
^Plunkett, Luke (September 4, 2014)."League Of Legends Just Destroyed Its Lore, Will Start Over".Kotaku.Archived from the original on October 17, 2020. RetrievedSeptember 4, 2020.[...] it's a move Riot were always going to have to make. As League grows in popularity, so too do its chances of becoming something larger, something that can translate more easily into things like TV series and movies.
^Hardenstein, Taylor Stanton (Spring 2017).""Skins" in the Game: Counter-Strike, Esports, and the Shady World of Online Gambling".UNLV Gaming Law Journal.7: 119.Archived from the original on January 4, 2021. RetrievedJanuary 4, 2021.A year later, the same championship was held in the 40,000-seat World Cup Stadium in Seoul, South Korea while another 27 million people watched online-more than the TV viewership for the final round of the Masters, the NBA Finals, the World Series, and the Stanley Cup Finals, for that same year.
^Capps, Robert (February 19, 2020)."How to Make Billions in E-Sports".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.Archived from the original on December 21, 2020. RetrievedDecember 24, 2020.According to Miller, the top players make closer to $300,000, which is still relatively cheap; League of Legends player salaries can reach seven figures.
^Cox, Matt (May 6, 2020)."Legends Of Runeterra review".Rock, Paper, Shotgun.Archived from the original on December 17, 2020. RetrievedDecember 24, 2020.
^Beckhelling, Imogen (October 16, 2019)."Here's everything Riot announced for League of Legends's 10 year anniversary".Eurogamer.Archived from the original on October 18, 2020. RetrievedOctober 18, 2020.League of Legends: Wild Rift is a redesigned 5v5 MOBA coming to Android, iOS and console. It features a lot of the same game play as LOL on PC, but has built completely rebuilt from the ground up to make a more polished experience for players on other platforms.
^Liao, Shannon (November 19, 2018)."League of Legends turns to Marvel comics to explore the game's rich lore".The Verge.Archived from the original on July 12, 2020. RetrievedSeptember 6, 2020.So far, Riot has limited its comic book ambitions to panels published on its site, which are timed to certain champion updates or cosmetic skin releases. Notably, a comic featuring Miss Fortune, a deadly pirate bounty hunter and captain of her own ship who seeks revenge on the men who betrayed her, was released last September.
.jpg)
