Wild Rift is Now Available on NA
Riot Games has released a mobile version of their wildly successful League of Legends game in both North and South America. On March 29th, League of Legends: Wild Rift was released in North America. All players in North America have complete access to Wild Rift on Android or iOS, and Riot should continue to extend an open invitation to all players to join the League of Legends world and culture. And, as a recent open beta announcement trailer confirms, the mobile game should be available to players in South America as well.
On PC, League of Legends is extremely dense and competitive, encouraging players to ascend the ranked ladder or even watch the best players participate in esports tournaments.
Players choose from a roster of champions that specialize in various positions. The two teams then battle it out in a 5v5 match, with the ultimate aim of destroying the enemy's nexus base. Different roles play different positions on the field, similar to football. A jungler may float around, looking for kills on unsuspecting enemies, while mage characters may try to dominate the mid lane, and so on.
Wild Rift is a revamped version of the original game for mobile devices. That's the basic elevator pitch; however, adapting a game as complex as this to play well on mobile devices isn't easy. The first thing Wild Rift gets right is avoiding one of the most challenging aspects of League on PC by using screen prompts and direct arrows to tell you what your champion does, where they should go, and most importantly, why you are going there.
My left thumb serves as a virtual arcade stick on the screen, allowing me to control my champion. My right thumb is used to unleash abilities such as a massive laser beam that does massive damage or a hail of bullets from my handguns that delays enemies in my vicinity. My character's regular attacks are also controlled by my right thumb, and I can introduce modifiers to control how they're used by tapping icons like "please prioritize this enemy" or "focus on minions."
The meat and bones tactics are similar between the PC League of Legends and the mobile Wild Rift, but some of the behaviors I picked up on the PC version are missing. Movement is a good example; when I'm playing on PC, I'm constantly clicking back and forth in my lane, just like a player shifting weight from foot to foot during a high-intensity game of dodgeball or even boxing. Wild Rift, on the other hand, is more like a fun stroll — instead of clicking my mouse, I simply move my thumb back and forth.
The Bottom Line
For any League players who live in North America and find that they no longer feel like playing the highly competitive game on their PC, they can now download the Wild Rift game on the app store of their chosen handheld device. This means that you can now play League on the go and the simplified version is definitely a ton of fun.
