New series of cinematics and tabletop game will build on League of Legends’ lore
As a part of Riot’s week of announcing its plans for the 2020 Season, VP of IP and entertainment Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street detailed a list of projects that Riot is working on to explore the lore of League of Legends.
In addition to what we already know about Riot Forge and the upcoming animated series Arcane, Riot will also release lore-specific animated shorts and a new tabletop game called Tellstones: King’s Gambit.
Similarly to the character-specific cinematics in Activision Blizzard’s Overwatch , these clips will explore the stories behind some of League’s champions and civilizations. Towards the end of the video, we even get to see a sneak peak at an upcoming animation featuring Akali and Shen.
Riot has a long history of releasing detailed animated shorts that serve as an opportunity to portray the characters of League of Legends in a different way than what we’re used to. Their most recent animation Warriors delves into the history of Sylas’ grudge against Demacia while giving glimpses of other familiar faces in action like the Caitlyn and Vi.
Outside of the virtual realm, Riot’s Tellstones looks to be their second crack at breaking into the tabletop scene. To show how serious they are about this project and future endeavors, Riot’s formed an entire department dedicated to tabletop games.
Tellstones is a bluffing-type game (think Mafia) for either two or four players and is meant to be the Demacian version of an actual game that’s played throughout Runeterra.
Mechs vs. Minions was Riot’s first ever attempt at entering the tabletop space. According to a recent blogpost by Riot, when making tabletop games they focus on four core concepts: how fun the experience is, how accessible it is, the components that make it up, and how they can alleviate any standard problem area. Tellstones is set to be faster and more competitive than Mechs vs. Minions.
If you want to hear more about these projects during their development throughout the year, be sure to follow @ghostcrawler on Twitter and sign up for the official email list here.
Images via Riot Games