League of Legends has been around for a long time. In fact, we’ll be hitting the game’s 15-year anniversary later this year, which is sure to make a certain segment of veteran players feel particularly ancient. It goes without saying that the entire video game industry has changed a lot in that time, and so have the demands of players.
As a result, some games that have been around for a while have had to adapt and shift to keep up with these shifting priorities. World of Warcraft has changed a lot, as have nearly every enduring franchise, from Call of Duty to Pokemon. Riot Games’ method for keeping things fresh? New game modes. While Summoner’s Rift remains the core pillar of its popular MOBA roots, the game has implemented more and more side attractions over the years, most recently with a series of limited-time events to help mix things up.
With the announcement of Swarm, a new vampire survivor-like mode coming this summer as part of the activation of the Anima Squad skin line, I sat down with League of Legends game director Pu Liu to talk about the importance of hybrid modes, how the team decides which games become permanent modes and when, and how this will impact League of Legends players’ fundamental need for the Rift.
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Why is Riot placing so much emphasis on continually introducing new game modes for League of Legends? If the core Summoner’s Rift mode is the foundation of the ranked and esports components, what’s the point of adding alternatives? The answer, according to Liu, seems to stem from the game’s changing audience.
“First of all, I want to say that Summoner’s Rift is very important to us,” Liu said. “It has always been our signature mode and will continue to be so. It is the foundation of our esports and the legacy of League of Legends (LoL). It is a space where the affinity and love for heroes and players can be expressed in the purest and most diverse forms.
“That being said, if you compare League of Legends and its audience 14 years ago to now, you’ll see that people are [what] What their motivations are, who they are. Someone who starts playing this game out of beta is very different than someone who started playing it two years ago. The latter may have grown up playing Minecraft, while I grew up playing StarCraft and Warcraft 2 and Warcraft 3. The framework of the experience they are used to and looking for is very different. So it was very important for us to change our model a little bit, from the heroes in League of Legends being tools on the map, to the heroes themselves being the experience. They have a visual identity and a narrative style that really draws people in.”
Liu compared League of Legends’ heroes to adult action figures (of the kind that are appropriate for the workplace, of course). He noted that the team’s approach to creating heroes is to appeal to a broad audience, with the hope that those players will connect with each other and find heroes they like, and then be able to play League of Legends through them. That’s through Summoner’s Rift, of course, but there are also a bunch of different modes right now, like ARAM, Arena, and Swarm — all of which are different avenues for connection.
You’ll find this quote when you look back at the changes to the game later in life. Mastery levels have played a big role in keeping players locked into their chosen heroes, and with activities like the upcoming Anima Squad Swarm mode and the old Spirit Bonds before it, the narrative focus has certainly allowed for that. For Liu, it’s all about embracing this changing player base. “We really want to embrace the fact that our audience has changed over the years and is more expansive and diverse than ever before.”
But that begs the question, what does this do to those League of Legends players who only like to play ranked and climb ladders? That’s certainly a large portion of the community, and it’s certainly worth paying attention to. Liu believes that changing the approach will make it feel like an expansion, rather than a change of focus.
“We want to be like, ‘Yeah, and then what?'” he said. “Think of it like a theme park. Maybe you come just for the Star Wars ride and want to ride it over and over again. That person is the one who enjoys Summoner’s Rift. We don’t want to degrade that experience, we want to continue to serve them well. They’re our core, and we love our core. But we also want to start building Buzz Lightyear rides and all these different things! We have a lot of players who love Summoner’s Rift, but they need a break from it every now and then. Maybe their friends aren’t online, so they can play solo Arena, or play Swarm, or whatever rotating game mode is available at the same time. We want players who have been playing League of Legends for a long time to see the addition of new things, not a hard switch.”
He elaborated on how a RollerCoaster Tycoon-style approach to improving theme parks could help, pointing to champion development as a prime example of how priorities have changed over the past 14 years. “Now, some of these changes will be as a result of reallocation of resources. We have to think hard about what these players expect, what they value most, and how to deliver on those expectations. For example, in the first year of League of Legends, every champion release was a big deal! When you went from 40 to 41, it was a big deal. When you went from 167 to 168, it was still cool, but by definition it was targeting a smaller percentage of our audience.”
“So one of the things we’ve been looking at over the last year and a half is, ‘Okay, are we putting too much effort into developing new heroes?’ Do players really want new heroes? Every time a new hero comes out, it adds new complexity to the game. So we need to find the right balance between, ‘Yes, we think new heroes are still valuable,’ and ‘What types of heroes should we make?’ [is] What’s the rate at which new heroes are appearing? ‘All of that leads us to think, what about modes? What about rotations? What about other ways to play and other motivations that players might have? ”
It’s worth noting that all of these alternative modes, including Swarm, are limited-time events that will eventually be phased out of the game entirely. Some modes, like Urf and Arena, have remained stable, but the team has made it clear that they are slowly developing Arena to eventually make it permanent. This begs the question, if these modes are designed to really engage players, and require a lot of resources to create, then why are they being phased out?
Liu explains his thought process here: “For modes, we think of them as a dichotomy between things we want to be evergreen and things we think are great for a short period of time – we might adapt them, bring them back, and then iterate on them. Sometimes modes are somewhere in between – so Arena is in that state right now. We believe it has the potential to be an evergreen mode, but we’re still figuring out the exact space it should exist in.” [in] Complete. When you see ARAM, it’s never going away or removed from the game. We think these permanent fixtures satisfy a timeless motivation and keep people coming back. They’re very playable, and they’re different from the rest of the portfolio.
“By rotating the game modes, we’re putting more emphasis on experimentation. We’re setting the right level of expectations—we don’t want Swarm to suddenly become a [double] Our player base is people who have been playing the game for 10 years! It’s an unrealistic goal, but we do think it’s a good idea to give players new and novel experiences in some PVE co-op mode that don’t exist elsewhere. We think it’s fun, it’ll get players excited about Anima Squad, and I think we’ll learn from it. If we learn a lot of positive things, we’ll carry them over to future Limited Play modes, and then who knows! There might be a version that turns into an evergreen thing.”
Liu stressed that this is a slow, steady, and cautious process. If that rock-solid player base starts to get frustrated with the shift, then everything will start over. “If we reduce the number of champion releases and players really hate it, then we’re doing it wrong. We hope that what we do really makes sense to players. Our goal is for people to understand the different approaches and appreciate the readjustment. It should feel like League of Legends is doing something I like every year, while also doing something that my friends who are a little different from me also like.”
Whether this will work in League of Legends’ favor is something we’ll see in years, not weeks or months. The game now, filled with ARAM, Teamfight Tactics, and the like, is very different from the original game I played when I was in school. Striking a balance between serving the core players of Summoner’s Rift and the wider, potentially more casual audience will undoubtedly be difficult. But if Riot can pull it off, it has the potential to make another transformational leap in the next 14 years.
