Riot Games Reaffirms Commitment to Legends of Runeterra on Its 5th Anniversary

Marc “Tryndamere” Merill, co-founder and co-chairman of Riot Games, clarifies that Legends of Runeterra “isn’t just surviving or in maintenance mode.” He mentioned in his tweet that the game is “adapting, growing, and laying down new roots for the future.”

Legends of Runeterra celebrated its fifth anniversary on April 29. It’s a digital card game set in the fictional universe of Runeterra, the same world as League of Legends. The card game won Mobile Game of the Year at the 24th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards. Apple also named it the iPad Game of the Year in 2020.

But in 2024, the development team responsible for the game at Riot announced that they’re going to scale down development of the game. The game’s focus will be more on the Player vs. Environment (PvE) aspect of the game, which is Path of Champions.

“The truth is that despite LoR [Legends of Runeterra] being an incredible game developed in tandem with the community, LoR has struggled over the years to find its footing as a business,” Dave “Davetron” Guskin said in the announcement.

Their focus on the PvE aspect of the game seems to have pulled off as it’s one of the things Tryndamere mentioned in his tweet. “Four years in, it became clear that players were overwhelmingly engaging with PvE, pointing us toward a new north star with a smaller team.”

Legends of Runeterra was released on April 29, 2020, for PC and mobile devices. It earned a “Generally Favorable” score on Metacritic.