How Wild Rift champions will be different from League of Legends

League players have received the first bit of news about Wild Rift, the MOBA sensation’s mobile and console port, after first being announced in October 2019, with developers outlining how the ‘sequel’ will vary from the original.

Wild Rift played a major part in the League 10 celebration announcements back in October 2019. After years of being asked, Riot finally adapted the popular MOBA into mobile and console, giving players on more platforms access to the game.

Since then, not a peep has been heard out of the Wild Rift camp. However, a March 17 video gave fans an update almost six months on about how progress is tracking, and what players should expect from the mobile League game.

Design Lead Brian ‘Feralpony’ Feeney spoke specifically about how Wild Rift will play differently to League of Legends from a champion perspective.

A lot of the more complex champions, and even some of the simpler ones, have undergone reworks to fit into the style of a mobile MOBA. However, while some champions might play out a bit differently to their PC counterparts, Riot are making sure they don’t feel different.

“During champion development, one thing became clear to us pretty quickly ⁠— we have to retain those memorable, galaxy-brain, heart-racing outplays from League,” said Feralpony.

• Read more: Everything we know about Wild Rift so far

“We want to keep the spirit and essence of the champs you know so they feel great for both veterans and newer players. With League coming to new platforms, we saw the opportunity to make a couple of small changes that we feel really shine on mobile and console.”

Champions with “purely passive abilities,” like Vayne’s Silver Bolts and Twisted Fate’s Stacked Deck, have been adapted into active abilities. While the passive ability will still remain, the active will give mobile players a bit more interaction with their champion in fights.

For example, with Silver Bolts, activating the ability will now give Vayne a burst of attack speed for three attacks, making it easy to get a quick proc of the passive off.

• Read more: League Patch 10.6 notes

“[We wanted to] keep the feel of the champion intact, while also giving [players] more control and agency over how they play,” said Feralpony.

On top of that, champions with point-and-click abilities, like Annie’s Disintegrate and Miss Fortune’s Double Up, have been changed to be easier to cast with dual stick controllers.

They will now become skill shots that players can target freely without having to lock onto a champion or monster. While it’ll be a pretty big change from the PC versions of those abilities, it’ll be a lot less frustrating to deal with in a mobile or console setting.

• Read more: Fiddlesticks rework revealed

Some abilities are being tuned up to “overdrive” as well. Lux’s ultimate will now have global range, while Ashe will be able to control the direction of her arrow and curve it to hit fleeing targets, instead of simply firing it in one direction and hoping for the best.

If you were hoping to get your hands on Wild Rift soon, the short video ended with some bad news in regards to when the game will actually be available.

The game is still early in development, and while there’s gameplay footage already available, Riot aren’t expecting a beta or full release until late 2020 at the earliest.