Riot is scrapping League of Legends’ lore and starting over

The story underpinning League of Legends is being rewritten to better serve the game it has evolved to become.

"We want League to always feel current through design balance, art updates, and new character themes and stories,” the development team said.

That means we have to be willing to look at work we’ve done in the past and honestly re-evaluate it. Sometimes we look back at decisions that made perfect sense when we originally made them, but are now at odds with our design values and ultimately limit our ability to continually improve League of Legends. That’s unacceptable, and in such situations we seek to aggressively reimagine content in a way that realizes its full potential.

At a very broad level, we’ve decided to push League’s story beyond its original focus on explaining in-game action and forge a new narrative path for Runeterra. From champion interactions to bios to events (and beyond), we aim to expand the scope of League’s story and pursue a more dynamic and wide-ranging world fit for the outsized capabilities and personalities of our champions.

Story has the potential to affect every element of League of Legends, so the decision to venture into new narrative territory wasn’t made quickly or capriciously. The need for change only became apparent over time, and the choice was made only after a great deal of deliberation.”

Riot has told fans, however, that just because the stories they have become accustomed to are no longer canon, that does not mean they count for nothing.

Does this mean older story efforts like the Journal of Justice and League Judgments are meaningless? Of course not,” it added. In the same way that we can go back and enjoy old books, shows, films, art, and comics that have been superseded by more recent interpretations of the same material, League’s original lore remains a cherished part of its history. From comic books to classic literature, exploration of the same creative space in vastly different ways is a natural part of storytelling.

Runeterra is a big place, with lots of room to be explored in different ways by different people – including players.”

In April Disney famously decided that the events of all previous Star Wars games are no longer considered canon in the Star Wars universe.