Riot Games, the creators of League of Legends, have created a new studio called Riot Forge. Riot Forge will be a publishing label within Riot Games who will work on developing games within the League of Legends Lore Universe. The games created under Riot Forge will be third-party studios, not directly Riot Games themselves. No games have been announced yet for the publishing label but the first game under them is expected to be announced during The Game Awards on December 12th.
Whether Legend of Runeterra, their upcoming fighting game, shooter, or adventure game are under Riot Forge remains to be seen.
This weekend is Blizzcon, Activision-Blizzard’s annual event, where they showcase new Blizzard content, games, and events. This years big showcase is Overwatch 2, World of Warcraft Shadowland expansion and Diablo 4. While Diablo 4 was an anticipated title, fans were surprised about the leak becoming true that Blizzard would release Overwatch 2. Overwatch 2isn’t an actual sequel to the team based shooter but rather an expansion which includes more story elements and PvE rather than PvP.
Despite fan excitement, neither titles have a launch date. This is pretty disappointing to fans but the games look like they have are based the Alpha stages. Some people online are speculating that Blizzard announced the two titles without release dates to earn good press after the recent controversies facing the company.
What?
During a professional Hearthstone player interview, a player wore clothes similar to protesters at Hong Kong. Ng “Blitzchung” Wai Chung said at the end of his interview “Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age!” The stream then quickly cuts to a commercial break. This resulted in the player receiving a year long ban from playing competitively, revoking his winnings from the tournament, and firing the two interviewers.
Blizzard stated cited a competition rule which states that players aren’t allowed to do anything that “brings [them] into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages [Blizzard’s] image. At Blizzcon, the President J. Allen Brack stated that “We moved too quickly in our decision-making and then, to make matters worse, we were too slow to talk with all of you,” said Brack. “We didn’t live up to the high standards we set for ourselves.
Blizzard has reduced his penalty to six months but fans were still outraged over the company’s decision. They felt that China’s influence made the company ban Blitzchung. There are several protesters at Blizzcon who support Blizchung’s opinion. With Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 coming out eventually, many Blizzard fans seem to have forgotten the issue and focusing on the company’s future titles. Whether intentional or not, Blizzard has dramatically reduced the spotlight on the Hong Kong issue and has moved it towards their new games. Whether people will still speak out against Blizzard remains to be seen.
Fallout 76 is a train wreck of a game. It’s awful to look at but you can’t stop watching. From the lackluster features to a $100 premium subscription, Fallout 76 can’t seem to stop catching on fire. Recently, Bethesda announced a Premium Subscirption that allowed players to create private servers for themselves and friends. It also included unlimited inventory storage space. Both features were what players were asking Bethesda for but is currently trapped behind a paid subscription. Premium players receive a medal that differentiates them from other players which has caused a Civil War.
Some players on Twitter and Reddit are reporting that Non-Premium players are intentionally attacking premium players. It’s an unintentionally addition but it sure is funny. How long the battle will go on remains to be seen but considering the premium players can just go into their private server, the war is kind of lame.
Meanwhile, The Outer World is doing extremely well for Obsidian. Obsidian previously worked on Fallout New Vegas and was acquired from Microsoft. 78% physical copies of the game were for the PlayStation 4 in the UK. With the addition of it being on Xbox Game Pass, the game has a massive reach. On MetaCritic, the game has an 80% for reviews and users.
Not to be outshined by Fortnite, Riot Games has announced several games for their 10th Anniversary.
Teamfight Tactics for Mobile
TFT released this year during the rise of the Autochess genre. Despite coming out later than Steams’ Autochess, TFT is the most popular on Twitch streaming as of this article. The mobile version is cross-play so you can play competitively on the go! You can pre-register for the game now.
Legends of Runeterra
First Autochess, now card games. League of Runeterra is Riot’s new online card game. The game features factions based on Runeterra’s lore and League of Legends champions. You can play on PC and Mobile devices and will be free to download. You can watch people currently stream it for League’s 10th anniversary.
League of Legends: Wildcard
Wildcard is the mobile and console version of League of Legends. The map is still the same but controls are adjusted for mobile and console play. Some champion mechanics are changed. You can see Ashe’s Ultimate is controllable in this version. The game is currently in Alpha stages but is expected to release in 2020
League of Legends Fighting Game (Project L)
During the stream for the 10th anniversary, you can catch a brief glimpse of Riot’s new fighting game. Riot acquired Radiant Entertainment who had worked on the PC fighting game Rising Thunder. Although Riot announced it at EVO this year, this is the first screenshot of the game. There is no planned release date at this time.