Much as Riot might like to think otherwise, a MOBA just ain’t the best place to show off your sprawling lore. It’s just hard to care about my wizard’s tragic past when I’m trying to hold mid. That’s where Ruined King: A League Of Legends Story comes in, a singleplayer turn-based RPG that’ll let you linger and explore Runeterra’s fantasy scenarios outside the brutal confines of a 90-minute multiplayer murderfest when it arrives next year.
Announced back in 2019, Ruined King was the first of two proposed MOBA spin-offs – the other being the awkwardly named action-platformer Conv/rgence: A League Of Legends Story. Today, Riot gave the spin-off release window and a new trailer.
Today’s trailer launches alongside a new site, giving us a peek at the League Of Legends characters and locales getting special attention from the turn-based RPG. So far, it looks like we’ll be commanding a party formed of Miss Fortune, Illaoi, Braum, Yasuo, Ahri, and Pyke, as they pit themselves against a mysterious black mist. We’ll spend some time in Bilgewater biffing up pirates and scoundrels, it seems, before heading off to the subtly-named Shadow Isles for some properly supernatural nonsense.
That’s basically it for the time being, though it sounds like we’ll be hearing more on Ruined King come December. The game’s being developed by Darksiders: Genesis devs Airship Syndicate, and is the first to be published under Riot’s new Riot Forge publishing label.
As a small team, Airship CEO Joe Madureira reckons they were able to keep development running reasonably well during the year’s pandemic, telling Eurogamer: “I think if we had hundreds of people trying to do this, it would be getting out of hand. I think we’re still a manageable size to where it didn’t impact us, as it probably did some other developers.”
Unfortunately for all you League shippers out there, it sounds like there’ll be no romance in the game. Soz. Ruined King: A League Of Legends Story is set to launch on Steam and the Epic Games Store early next year.