The End of Our Legends of Runeterra Journey
In 2019, we had the honor of being part of Riot’s first new game launch outside of the LoL client, Legends of Runeterra. The minute we got offered this opportunity was one of the most exciting moments of my life – I won’t forget it.
It took endless hours of pouring over lore and working on a slideshow and prototype designs for our team to shoot our best shot, and the call that sealed the deal left me in tears of joy. We were going to be part of Riot’s next launch! I couldn’t believe it!
I remember the first time they showed us gameplay, and allowed us to even test it out. I was mind-blown at the amazing level-up animations and innovative mana system. The game oozed with details like the banter between champions (The Garen, Lux, and Ezreal interaction is still one of my favorites until today) and the lush worldbuilding presented by the art and text.
As an ardent Hearthstone player who churned out after Dr. Boom and things got too RNG-heavy, it was Hearthstone but better for me. Skill and style, this was going to be amazing. We played countless hours of its early alpha version while building our site and couldn’t wait to see it released into the world.
On Oct 15th, LoR was revealed for the first time during Riot’s 10-Year Anniversary Celebration. alongside titles like VALORANT, Project L, and more.
Our team was at Riot Headquarters, in the LoR launch War Room, while all the hype news was revealed. When they used the big screen to show the first streamer playing the game using our deck tool designed to help all viewers learn the game, it was a proud moment.
On top of all that, as we deployed the LoR site we were stunned at all the other announcements we weren’t aware of. It was an incredible day that marked a key moment in gaming history.
Since then, LoR has had its ups and downs, affected by factors and decisions from in-game and IRL. Earlier this year, the LoR team released their 2024 State of the Game FAQ that indicated their deprioritization of its PvP in favor of a long-term PvE emphasis.
I love Path of Champions, and played a ton of it when it launched, but our site is designed to support the deck-building and PVP elements of the game. That’s why, with heavy hearts and after much deliberation, Mobalytics has decided to sunset our Legends of Runeterra product due to this shift.
Why We’re Sunsetting
Although we believe that LoR still has a lot of life to live, I want to talk about why the game’s future no longer aligns with ours.
It takes a lot of resources to build a site and its features, maintain it, and continue adding more to it. With the state of the gaming industry being in constant ephemeral flux (pun not intended), it’s always a risk to sink a ton of resources into one game. When we built LoR, we knew it was going to be big, so we didn’t hold back.
Admittedly, many of the original team members who helped us build the LoR site in 2019, are no longer with us. Layer on top of this, some poor technical choices and this causes us a lot of grief when making changes to LoR’s infrastructure.
Personnel-wise, we currently are not built for the PvE roguelike deckbuilding genre and it would involve a lot of relearning, scrapping, and rebuilding from the existing team.
Although there is one last PvP set coming out, we thought it’d be best for us to step away now and give more spotlight to other sites who have done a great job supporting the community like:
- LoR.GG
- Mastering Runeterra
- Runeterra.AR
- The Runeterra Report
What’s Happening Next
In the near future, the Mobalytics LoR section and its features will no longer be accessible.
Although we won’t have our LoR site, we will still be continuing our PvP Meta Tier list on our blog and plan to do so for a good while there is a PvP community playing the final set.
Lastly, we wanted to give thanks and shout-outs to some of the awesome people who were a part of our LoR journey:
- Riot Dovagedys for being an awesome resource
- Riot ASmallMan for being our project champion and all-around amazing dude
- Riot Coop for being our technical rock – sorry for bugging you so much
- Riot Gene for being our everlong friend
- …and many other great Rioters
- Shugo
- Kuvira
- Scarzig
- Silverfuse
- NicMakesPlays
- WhatAmI
- Dr. LoR and Kozmic for being the amazing stat nerds they are and keeping us straight
- JDoza + Boulevard
- Precipic
- RattlingBones
- Gdaymaverick
This really sucks, but all cycles pass and at Mobalytics we have big plans to be in more games in a more sustainable way. We hope you will join us, because – well why not?
Sincerely,
Uthgar
Karma: “May your wanderings find you peace.”
Yasuo: “Time will tell.”
