Since its release in 2009, League of Legends set the standard for multiplayer online battle arena games, paving way for countless similar games to appear later on. League of Legends was inspired by a mod from Warcraft III in which players would initially group up to destroy enemy Ancients. After garnering rapid attention and a growing player base since it was released eight years ago, League of Legend’s player count has reached over 100 million players. By 2012, it was the most played game on PCs and continuously rose to gather more players from around the globe.
League of Legends took inspiration from the original Warcraft mod Defense of the Ancients, resulting in the creation of a whole new MOBA with a more competitive and detailed structure. As with any MOBA, every player controls a “Champ” or “Hero”, which are featured characters with unique abilities, who then team up with four other players in 5v5 combat. Each character starts off fairly weak and grows stronger as they earn upgrades through battles or secondary objectives.
League Of Legends took a different approach to fantasy-type games by creating a more competitive and skill-based multiplayer game, as opposed to games like Avalon II: Quest For The Grail, which you can play here, which adds a Vegas casino component to a fantasy game based on King Arthur and his knights, or World Of Warcraft (about which you can read more info here), an open-world RPG with similar aspects, but based more on a solo adventure of each players own character.
The goal of each game is to strengthen your character and work together with your team to break down defences and destroy the enemy Nexus, a command centre of sorts, in the middle of either base. Players are placed in the Summoners Rift, a game map designed for 5v5 combat. Each player is assigned a role and slowly build strength over the duration of the game to complete said role, like “tanking” or “supporting” your team members- combining skills and unique abilities together to achieve your end goal.
With more players joining on a daily basis, RIOT, the creators behind League of Legends, would expand their franchise to toys, clothes, featured music videos and even international championship cups known as the League Championship Series, or LCS, setting a standard for the sky-rocketing popularity of e-sports in this day and age.
Character design and lore have steadily improved in this trending MOBA game over the years, with character inspiration coming from fantasy, horror, mythical and other genres. As far as League of Legends goes, it’s already set its mark on MOBA defence games, with players receiving unique awards for climbing the competitive and gruelling rank ladders, or even just playing for fun. In-depth tutorials provide helpful training for new players, making the game easier to play yet much harder to master, with fantastic graphics being constantly updated to make the game suitable for each generation onwards. After only eight years, this game has truly changed the way MOBA games are seen in the gaming world.
