At the end of last year, Riot Games announced an effort to expand theLeague of LegendsIP beyond its MOBA roots. Acquiring and partnering with several third-party studios, Riot Games' new initiative for its 10th anniversary has spawned aLeague of Legendsfighting game, a popular FPS calledValorant, a collectible card game calledLegends of Runeterra, and even a business/management sim forLoLesports. TheLeague of Legendsuniverse will soon reach far beyond the base game into a ton of new gaming experiences, a sentiment that Respawn Entertainment recently expressed with the hit battle royaleApex Legendsas well.
Lore continues to expand and grow alongside the popularity ofApex Legends, which still boasts several million active players and is consistently a top 20 game on Twitch. With each new character and season has come new cinematics and lore entries detailing the world of the popular battle royale title. Now, Respawn Entertainment and EA have the opportunity to potentially expand theApex Legendsworld outward into various other gameplay experiences. There’s enough lore and background material that could make a similar expansion plan feasible, but it’s unclear ifApex Legends' lore has as much staying power asLeague of Legendsdoes.
How Riot Games Has Expanded Beyond League of Legends
League of Legends' expansion was emphasized earlier this week witha new cinematic story trailer forRuined King: A League of Legends Story. Alongside the other untitled projects that Riot Games announced last year,Ruined Kingwill be a single-player RPG set in theLeague of Legendsuniverse. Players will add several iconic characters from the base game (Miss Fortune, Ahri, Illaoi, Yasuo, Braum, and Pyke) into their party as they explore the Shadow Isles. Slated to release early next year, it’s the first of several ambitious projects set in theLeague of Legendsuniverse to expand the story of Riot Games' now-iconic MOBA.
Ruined Kingcomes alongside several spin-offs and untitled projects currently in the works. TheLeague of Legendsfighting game, called “Project L,” is currently in development under Radiant Entertainment, a first party studio run by EVO founders Tom and Tony Cannon that Riot Games acquired way back in 2016. Riot Games' first-person shooter, codenamed “Project A,” becamethe immensely popularValorantmultiplayer shooter.Legends of Runeterra, the officialLeague of Legendscard game, is now available to play on mobile devices and PC.
Respawn Entertainment Could Do the Same with Apex Legends
WhileLeague of Legendscontinues to grow outside the MOBA, it seemsApex Legendsshares a similar desire to grow outside of its own battle royale genre. In an interview with Eurogamer,Apex Legendsgame director Chad Grenier mentioned a desire to expand and “eventually evolve into something beyond a battle royale.” At first, Grenier mentions thatcrossplay and the Nintendo Switch release ofApex Legendsare the first steps to expanding the game. However, Grenier subsequently poses the question of howApex Legendscould move beyond just iterating onApex Legendswith additional limited-time-modes.
ConsideringApex Legendstakes place within the largerTitanfalluniverse, there’s already plenty of lore for expanded games to draw from. With the IMC/Milita conflict chronologically occurring decades before the events ofApex Legends, a lot has already happened. It is possible additional spin-offs could return with anotherTitanfallgame, whether it’s a prequel or sequel, to detail further events of the Frontier War. There’s also plenty of potential in theApex Legendsstoryline, outside of the battle royale’s existing lore. Character-specific stories like a stealth-oriented/Hitman-style game for Revenant, or perhaps a single-player first-person shooter detailing Bangalore’s time with the IMC Armed Forces, these could certainly do well forApex Legendsfans in the right context.
Spin-Off Potential in Apex Legends' Universe
It’s really up to theApex Legendsto determine whether or not the battle royale has the same staying power asLeague of Legendsdoes.League of Legendshas been around for over 10 years, and still remains one of the biggest MOBAs and esports games of all time. In comparison,Apex Legendsis a far younger game that released a year and a half ago. Granted, if theTitanfallgames are looped in, then the overarchingApex Legends-Titanfalluniverse has been around for six years. That’s still comparatively a short time, which means asking ifApex Legendshasthe same character reputation asLeague of Legendsis a valid question, at least when strictly talking about spin-offs.
Perhaps it’d be interesting to see how theApex Legendscommunity responds to the idea of spin-off titles, and whether it’d be a worthy venture for Respawn Entertainment and/or EA. At a glance,Apex LegendsandTitanfallbring enough to the table lore-wisefor this to be absolutely possible, but it’s a matter of gauging whether the interest is there. Somehow mixing the whimsical nature ofApex Legends' lore with the seriousness ofTitanfallcould be an interesting experiment.
Who’s to sayLeague of Legendsplayers are going to come out in droves forRuined King? Plenty of players have jumped on theValoranttrain, but that’s not exactly a direct correlation toLeague of Legends' success.Apex Legendscould certainly try it, but don’t expect Respawn Entertainment to announce six different spin-off games like Riot Games did.
Apex Legendsis available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The Nintendo Switch version has been delayed to 2021.
