After significant backlash over the Season 13 launch cinematic, Riot Games has come out to admit its mistakes and promise that Season 2024 will see improvements.
Riot Games has been dealing with fan backlash for its decisions around professional play, in-game events, champion reworks, and the Season 13 launch cinematic. After a lackluster season launch cinematic that eschewed the expected champion-focused storytelling top-notch cinematic for a lazy flyby of Summoner’s Rift textured with Mia Sinclair Jenness, the voice actress for Arcane’s Powder, reading out champion quotes, Riot had a lot to make up for in the eyes of fans.
Community dissatisfaction had been steadily building with Riot Games surrounding various decisions being made that affected League of Legends and its community since late 2022. These grievances boiled over when fans weren’t treated to the theatrical-quality champion-focused season launch cinematic that had become standard fare since 2018, and the MOBA developer was forced to respond. In an eight-minute-long video, senior Riot Games employees Riot Brightmoon and Riot Meddler sat down to address the community’s disappointment and assure fans that their voices were being heard.
Most of the negative sentiment revolved around perceptions that Riot Games was deprioritizing its first and biggest title in order to pay more attention to newer titles like Valorant. In the video posted to League of Legends social media, Brightmoon and Meddler tried to assure the community that Riot Games was more committed to League of Legends than ever. In order to make clear to fans that their concerns had been heard, both were willing to commit to several milestones that could tangibly be met within the next year and afterward.
Firstly, they promised that Riot Games would be bringing back the champion-focused cinematics to begin each season that fans had come to expect. League of Legends has very few opportunities to tell a dynamic in its match-to-match gameplay due to the static nature of MOBAs. This meant that many fans looked forwards to the beginning of each year as one of the few, if not the only, chances to see their beloved characters interacting with the world of Runeterra.
Riot acknowledged that this wasn’t just a flashy set piece but an important part of fans’ relationships to the game, and that Season 2024 would start with an expected product much more akin to The Call, Awaken, and the other cinematics that had been published since 2018.
At the same time, the developer announced that new events, including a new game mode, would be coming in the approaching year, something that hadn’t been announced in the yearly roadmap where fans expected it. Finally, Brightmoon and Meddler promised continued investment into League of Legends’ tech, as well as increased communication and transparency about the developer’s plans for the game.
Only time can tell if these promises will be kept, but it certainly sets a clear path for fan trust to be regained and rebuilt after multiple missteps.
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