Riot has announced that the Legends of Runeterra team is going to be refocusing its efforts on PVP, moving resources off Path of Champions, a mode that has been quite popular. Read on for our recap and their full post.

  • Riot ultimately has decided they currently don't plan to chase both PVP and PVE in Legends of Runeterra.
    • Instead, they want to focus on PVP because that's the target audience for the game.
    • PVP is the most productive place to create content because it can be enjoyed long-term.
  • Path of Champions is loved by players but Riot knows it still needs a lot of work.
  • For now, Path of Champions is going to see less updates, but will see new map additions.
  • An updated roadmap will be posted towards the end of the summer to show us what is to come for the rest of the year.

But wait, because that's not all. Dave Gaskin, Executive Producer on Legends of Runeterra also mentioned that some developers that working Path of Champions have left the team.

  • These developers are working on other projects at Riot, both old and in-development.
  • They will be taking their expertise over to new projects.

Reading between the lines a bit, it sounds like Riot has decided that Path of Champions, or at least the idea of it, is going to become its own game at the company. With how many resources the team poured into the game mode, it makes sense to spin this off as its own project with its own dedicated team. It's a temporary setback for players that enjoyed the Path of Champions mode, but for those that enjoy that type of gameplay, we're expecting Riot will have something similar to offer in the future.

What are your thoughts? Do you think Riot refocusing on the PVP aspect of Legends of Runeterra is a good thing or were things already fine?  Would you like to see Path of Champions out of the Legends of Runeterra experience? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Quote From Dave Guskin

Hey Players - I’m Dave Guskin and I have been on the LoR team since 2018, previously serving as Game Director and Design Director. Recently, I’ve moved into the Executive Producer role for LoR and we are in the midst of some changes with the team that we wanted to get you up to speed on.

The LoR team has regularly explored new game-play options and settings, leading to a number of insights into what you, the players, enjoy most. One of the things we’ve learned is that while The Path of Champions mode currently provides a fun and solid experience, it’s going to require significant investment to expand it to fully become what we envisioned.

So after a lot of conversations and reflection, we’ve decided that rather than continuing to split the game’s focus between core PvP gameplay and The Path of Champions game mode, we want to focus on hyper serving our core PvP player base. This will include more consistent & well-tuned card updates, and exciting new expansions that we hope you all will enjoy. At its core, LoR is a CCG with a passionate community and PvP is where we believe our team can best serve players and deliver an experience that you all will continue to enjoy. The Path of Champions game mode will remain playable but will receive fewer updates for now.

At the same time that we are refocusing on PvP and slowing down our efforts on The Path of Champions game mode, Riot has so many projects that could benefit from all we have learned with you in our experiments so far. Without any spoilers, I can say that we’re planning to share the love by redeploying a few of our game developers who have worked on The Path of Champions to support some other projects around Riot, some of which are already live and playable, and some of which are in our R&D pipeline which I know you’re excited to get your hands on. So if you are one of our players who loves LoR and The Path of Champions, you can look forward to seeing glimmers of its influence in other games from Riot soon.

Though we are proud of some of the critical acclaim we’ve received since launch, what gives us the most pride is how committed our players are to this community we have built together. Riot is also committed to continuing to support our game and our community. This pivot will allow us to serve the core LoR players and hyper-focus on our core audience, while also turbocharging other great games from Riot by lending a few talented LoR devs to their awesome teams.

We are excited about what the future holds for LoR and what that means for you, our players. The competitiveness of the game, our engagement with the community, and our frequent updates are the heartbeat of LoR, and those things will remain intact so we can build upon them as we work on further defining our future vision.

We’ll be back by the end of the summer to give an updated look at our new focused roadmap, and we’re excited to see how you like Worldwalker & future expansions in the meantime.

Finally, I want to thank JJ and Brett for their support in this new role. I can’t wait to see what they do next here at Riot!

Dave