RIOT GAMES’ co-founder talks about its past, present, and ambitious future.
It doesn’t matter if you love or hate League of Legends, you should be paying attention to Riot Games. It’s hard not to, actually, when right now it’s taking over buildings in Paris, Singapore, and four other major cities, converting them into giant, interactive, promotional set-pieces—not to mention displaying a three-minute teaser on the facade of the world’s tallest tower in Dubai. Fortnite and Among Us now have League of Legends crossovers, and all of Riot’s games have just been hit with their own wave of big announcements, like Legends of Runterra’s new singleplayer roguelike deck builder mode. And at the center of this combo is Arcane, a gorgeous and epic new animated TV series set in the League of Legends world that premiered just days ago after the League World Finals. Riot knows how to make a scene.
The last two years have seen Riot evolve into something much more ambitious than just a game company: It’s becoming a media giant where music videos, animated TV series, and games all feedback into and draw from a universe of characters that one day might—it hopes—rival titans like Marvel and DC. Though League of Legends is at the heart of that universe, it isn’t just about teams of five squaring off in a map divided into three lanes anymore.
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Special Report- Stacked Deck - Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big.
Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big. Four years later, its successor Inkbound’s launch from Early Access was looking more like Sandwich Big.I’m not just saying that because of the mountain of lamb and eggplants I ate while meeting with developer Shiny Shoe over lunch, to feel out what the aftermath of releasing a game looks like in 2024. I mean, have I thought about that sandwich every day since? Yes. But also, the indie team talked frankly about the struggle of luring Monster Train’s audience on board for its next game.
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