League of Legends (LoL), commonly referred to as League, is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by Defense of the Ancients, a custom map for Warcraft III, Riot’s founders sought to develop a stand-alone game in the same genre. Since its release in October 2009, League has been free-to-play and is monetized through purchasable character customization. The game is available for Windows and macOS.
In the game’s main mode, Summoner’s Rift, two teams of five players battle in player-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 collecting experience points, earning gold, and purchasing items 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 the greatest 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 series Arcane. Its success has spawned several spin-off video games, including a mobile version, a digital collectible card game, and a turn-based role-playing game, among others. A massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on the property is in development.
League of Legends is the world’s largest esport, with an international competitive scene consisting of multiple regional leagues which culminates in an annual League of Legends World Championship. The 2019 event registered over 100 million unique viewers, peaking at a concurrent viewership of 44 million during the finals. Domestic and international events have been broadcast on livestreaming websites such as Twitch, YouTube, Bilibili, and the cable television sports channel ESPN.
Gameplay
League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game in which the player controls a character (“champion”) with a set of unique abilities from an isometric perspective. During a match, champions gain levels by accruing experience points (XP) through killing enemies. Items can be acquired to increase champions’ strength, and are bought with gold, which players accrue passively over time and earn actively by defeating the opposing team’s minions, champions, or defensive structures. 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. Each match is discrete; levels and items do not transfer from one match to another.
E-Sport
League of Legends is one of the world’s largest esports, described by The New York Times as its “main attraction”. Online viewership and in-person attendance for the game’s esports events outperformed those of the National Basketball Association, the World Series, and the Stanley Cup in 2016. For the 2019 and 2020 League of Legends World Championship finals, Riot Games reported 44 and 45 peak million concurrent viewers respectively. Harvard Business Review said that League of Legends epitomized the birth of the esports industry.
As of April 2021, Riot Games operates 12 regional leagues internationally, four of which—China, Europe, Korea, and North America—have franchised systems. In 2017, this system comprised 109 teams and 545 players. League games are typically livestreamed on platforms such as Twitch and YouTube. The company sells streaming rights to the game; the North American league playoff is broadcast on cable television by sports network ESPN. In China, the rights to stream international events such as the World Championships and the Mid-Season Invitational were sold to Bilibili in Fall 2020 for a three-year deal reportedly worth US$113 million, while exclusive streaming rights for the domestic and other regional leagues are owned by Huya Live. The game’s highest-paid professional players have commanded salaries of above $1 million—over three times the highest-paid players of Overwatch. The scene has attracted investment from businesspeople otherwise unassociated with esports, such as retired basketball player Rick Fox, who founded his own team. In 2020, his team’s slot in the North American league was sold to the Evil Geniuses organization for $33 million.
Spin-offs and other media
Games
For the 10th anniversary of League of Legends in 2019, Riot Games announced several games at various stages of production that were directly related to the League of Legends intellectual property (IP). A stand-alone version of Teamfight 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. Legends of Runeterra, a free-to-play digital collectible card game, launched in April 2020 for Microsoft Windows; the game features characters from League of Legends. League of Legends: Wild Rift is a version of the game for mobile operating systems Android and iOS. Instead of porting the game from League of Legends, Wild Rift‘s character models and environments were entirely rebuilt. A single-player, turn-based role-playing game, Ruined King: A League of Legends Story, was released in 2021 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and Windows. It was the first title released under Riot Games’s publishing arm, Riot Forge, wherein non-Riot studios develop games using League of Legends characters. In December 2020, Greg Street, vice-president of IP and Entertainment at Riot Games, announced that a massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on the game is in development. 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 by Tequila Works, the creators of Rime. It was released on Windows and the Nintendo Switch on November 1, 2023.
Music
Riot Games’s first venture into music was in 2014 with the virtual heavy metal band Pentakill, promoting a skin line of the same name. 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 by Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee and Danny Lohner, a former member of industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails. Their second album, Grasp of the Undying, reached number one on the iTunes metal charts in 2017.
Pentakill was followed by K/DA, a virtual K-pop girl 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. The group’s debut single, “Pop/Stars”, which premiered at the 2018 League of Legends World Championship, garnered over 400 million views on YouTube and sparked widespread interest from people unfamiliar with League of Legends. After a two-year hiatus, in August 2020, Riot Games released “The Baddest”, the pre-release single for All Out, the five-track debut EP from K/DA which followed in November that year.
In 2019, Riot created a virtual hip hop group called True Damage, featuring the champions Akali, Yasuo, Qiyana, Senna, and Ekko. The vocalists—Keke Palmer, Thutmose, Becky G, Duckwrth, and Soyeon—performed a live version of the group’s debut song, “Giants”, during the opening ceremony of the 2019 League of Legends World Championship, alongside holographic versions of their characters. The in-game cosmetics promoted by the music video featured a collaboration with fashion house Louis Vuitton.
In 2023, Riot formed Heartsteel, a virtual boy band, comprising the champions Aphelios, Ezreal, Kayn, K’Sante, Sett, and Yone. The vocalists are Baekhyun from the K-pop groups Exo and SuperM, Cal Scruby, ØZI, and Tobi Lou. Heartsteel’s debut single “Paranoia” was released in October of that year.
Comics
Riot announced a collaboration with Marvel Comics in 2018. Riot had previously experimented with releasing comics through its website. Shannon Liao of The 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”. The first comic was League of Legends: Ashe—Warmother, which debuted in 2018, followed by League of Legends: Lux that same year. A print version of the latter was released in 2019.
Arcane
While celebrating League of Legends‘s tenth anniversary, Riot announced an animated television series, Arcane. It was the company’s first production for television, and a collaboration between Riot Games and animation studio Fortiche Production. The series is set in the technologically advanced city of Piltover and its oppressed, underground sister city of Zaun. Arcane explores adult themes and is not intended for children. It features multiple playable characters from League of Legends. Hailee Steinfeld stars as Vi, Ella Purnell as Jinx, Kevin Alejandro as Jayce, and Katie Leung as Caitlyn.
After a delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the series premiered in November 2021 on Netflix internationally and through Tencent Video in China. The first season received critical acclaim, winning four Emmy Awards and nine Annie Awards. After the success of the first season, Riot hired former executives from Netflix, HBO Max, and Paramount Television Studios to expand its entertainment division, and CEO Nicolo Laurent pledged to create an “entertainment company for the 21st century”. Ahead of the premiere of the second and final season, Variety reported that production and marketing costs for Arcane‘s 18 episodes exceeded $250 million, making it the most expensive animated series ever made.
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”. The second season premiered in November 2024 to similar acclaim, winning seven Annie Awards in all nominated categories. GKIDS produced home media releases of the first season in 2024, including a collector’s edition DVD, a 4K UHD steelbook, and Blu-ray variants. As of 2025, home media releases for the second season are forthcoming.
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