League of Legends is one of the most popular ongoing games of all time but why is League of Legends so popular?
.Its core gameplay revolves around two teams battling each other until one’s base is destroyed. It is a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game.
Many games release and disappear after a while, and some servers are shut down, but not League of Legends. They are still standing strong since 2009.
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The game even expanded into a lot of other spin-off titles, a board game, and now a TV Series called Arcane that is phenomenal for both League of Legends players and casual viewers.
Why is League of Legends so Popular?
Evolution and Changes
The game keeps evolving with patches nearly every two weeks with a couple of exceptions over the years. They often change the balance of a lot of champions and items on a regular basis which shapes up the meta. It allows for a lot more champions to be playable at a certain time.
Once a year Riot Games also makes a huge patch in the pre-season. It often changes A LOT in the game. The pacing and length of the game change and content is added or changed as well. The most recent changes as of February 2022 are the dragon changes. It was introduced in 2020, and they expanded upon it in the pre-season of 2021.
Every game is different because there are a lot of combinations between over 150 champions and the random element of elemental dragons as well. Many items were added, deleted, or reworked over the years and they are the core of building a specific hero.
Games that come from the RTS genre, in general, tend to rely on more strategy in general, and League of Legends went in an action direction, and it keeps paying off. The game is more accessible, which could be bad for some players because it means that it is easier overall than it was some time ago. However, the difficulty of the game often depends on your ranking and the champion you are playing.
Credit: Riot Games
Why is League of Legends So Popular? – Eternals and Events
There is a lot of diversity when it comes to creating character builds, and you can play a single character in many ways with the reworked item system. Champion reworks also add a breath of fresh air to some older heroes. In addition, the everchanging events add a lot of meaning to playing the game.
A lot of missions require you to play the game, you do not need to accomplish any hard specific missions. Just play the game and earn rewards. The game is full of events like Ruination, Pool Party, Christmas Events, Halloween Events, and more. They often add thematic skins and other rewards like icons or ward skins to earn in your collection.
Finally, when it comes to just feeling purpose by playing the game apart from missions Riot Games has added Eternals to the game. It is another way of tracking your progress with various milestones that measure how many kills you have on a specific champion, how many enemies you have defeated or hit with your Ultimate, and much more. Statistics are fun, yay!
Champions
There is a lot of diversity when it comes to champions. Every character has its own set of abilities. Four active and a passive. It is often more complex than that because champions like Aphelios have basically about 16 abilities and 25 interactions that all work differently, but not every champion is so complex.
However, it all results in you having a lot of freedom of choice while choosing the role and character you want to focus on and learn. The thing that differentiates League of Legends from other games is that it is still very accessible for casual players.
You do not need to play ranked and master every champion in order to stay relevant and have fun. It is rare these days and League does that very well.
Credit: Riot Games
Why is League of Legends So Popular? – Lore
League of Legends always had some kind of story behind the characters, but in the last couple of years, they expanded upon it tremendously. With a lot of character reworks that add a lot of freshness to the game there are a lot of changes or rewrites to this character’s lore. Gangplank’s rework added a lot of lore to Bilgewater for example.
Esports Scene
League of Legends is one of the biggest games when it comes to e-sports, and Riot keeps pushing this notion forward. E-sports is slowly going in its own direction, like a split branch of gaming. League of Legends is at the top of the mountain when it comes to organizing events like Worlds.
Millions of viewers all around the world gather to watch some match in a game. It seems amazing, and connecting communities, especially among gamers is always a good thing. It is pleasant even for people who do not play the game.
Some players even found their parents watching the finals of Worlds 2021 on national TV as a broadcast. They had a lot of fun watching a video game that they have no clue what it is about.
Credit: Riot Games
Why is League of Legends So Popular? – Media Expansion
Last but not least, in recent years League of Legends is much bigger than the classic game itself. The world grew big and is expanding into other video games like Ruined King: A League of Legends Story which is a strategy game focused on just a few characters.
Legends of Runeterra is a build-your-own deck card game. In addition, there are a lot of other video games in production including an action RPG and fighting game set in the world of League of Legends.
Finally, the amazing success of the TV Show by Netflix and Riot Games called “Arcane”. It was the main mainstream expansion to date and was definitely a success. The marketing was huge around it and the second season is already in the works set for its earliest release in 2023.
The game is really good and expanding upon the world created over a decade ago keeps the interest going. All the updates to the game help the core experience to attract new players, as well as make old-time veterans come back from time to time and play a game or two of Full AP Nunu. Just remember to have fun, no matter what game you play.
So why is League of Legends so popular all over the world? Well, all of the above and probably so much more.
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