Evolution is one of the core elements of League of Legends. Champions, events, skins, splash art, and the maps themselves are just some of the avenues through which we seek to continually level up every facet of the game. We want League to always feel current through design balance, art updates, and new character themes and stories.
In the early days of League, we created a fictional background that would justify how players could control champions during games. We came up with concepts like Summoners, Fields of Justice, an Institute of War, and indeed, the League of Legends itself all in an attempt to provide fictional context for in-game action. After a while, these early choices began to create unexpected problems. Every new champion needed a reason to join and remain in the League, and as their number grew, the net result was that over time the world started to feel, well, small, and eventually less interesting. The institutions we'd designed fostered creative stagnation, limiting the ways that champions, factions and Runeterra itself could grow and change.
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 a world in which the factions and champions we all know and love have full freedom to grow, travel, and kick ass on a worldwide scale. 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.
When it comes to storytelling, things will continue forward much as they have done already League as a whole evolves steadily over time, often in small steps, and the same is true of its story. We'll continue to explore Runeterra through various mediums, in chunks both large and small, and we hope you'll come along for the ride and continue to share your ideas and feedback.