At Riot Games, many should be rubbing their hands in glee right now. The studio is increasingly being compared to the old Blizzard, the Netflix series Arcane was a bombastic success – and is now also strengthening the most important horse in the racing stable: League of Legends.
I have a pretty checkered relationship with LoL. It used to be the game that connected my entire circle of friends – and what fantastic times we had back then! In my rose-tinted memory, it looks like this: Fishing ice-cold Spezi out of the fridge every afternoon, booting up the PC, a big hello all around, and then it was off into the Summoner’s gear together. Fun and joy (and the occasional roar of rage) until I fall into bed late at night.
But it wasn’t quite that nice in the long run, unfortunately. And that wasn’t even due to the notorious toxic community.
LoL lets you first read the in-house etiquette. Such measures have actually noticeably improved the mood in the community.
There was always something going on with LoL. Sometimes the servers were shaky for weeks. Then almost every new champion was so overpowered that it was no fun at all until the inevitable nerf. Aatrox was such a candidate. And every – Season brought changes that I personally didn’t like very much. I’m just a creature of habit, I still mourn the original Soraka.
At some point I played LoL less and less, at times not at all. But then came the fantastic Netflix series Arcane. And suddenly my whole circle started (again) and the pull has now caught me too. So I hooked up with some dear GameStar friends and now I’m spending my evenings in Runeterra again to answer your question: Is LoL 2021 a cool game worthy of your time? And what is it like to join now brand new or after a long break?
Steffi is happy as a cauliflower schnitzel that she is allowed to write so much about LoL and the universe around it lately. And in the meantime there are even sparks between her and her old love League of Legends again: She has finally kept her promise to play together with colleague Mary. Thank you, Mary, you are a fantastic Nocturne.
If you start LoL from scratch in 2021
To experience for myself what awaits complete newcomers to LoL right now, I created a new account and played through the three-part tutorial. In just a few minutes, you’ll learn what the MOBA is all about, how to control your champion, and so on. At the end, you get to choose one hero each.
What I notice a lot is that you used to get a lot less rewards thrown at you, now you have a solid champion pool together very quickly at no cost.
So the tutorial at least explains the most important steps in the game and pushes a few heroes into your hands right away. However, no tutorial in the world can prepare you for the real, highly complex interplay of 157 champions, five very different player roles, and countless items, runes, neutral monsters, and so on. LoL is a darn complicated game that you’ll have to put a lot of sweat and tears into if you want to get good at it.
The happy news: LoL can be a lot of fun even if you’re not particularly good. I speak from experience on this. Especially if you’re playing with friends who are getting started with you. Or maybe even already have an idea what exactly is meant by “Help me with the Blue” or “We need vision with the Baron!”. But you’ll probably figure that out on your own if you play regularly. It just takes longer.
However, LoL leaves newcomers completely out in the cold when it comes to unlocking champions and skins. You get some as free rewards for certain “missions”. Win a game, play a round in ARAM mode, and so on.
How much money do you have to spend on LoL? The basic game is completely free and you can unlock all champions for free. You can’t buy any gameplay advantages for real money – but if you spend money, you might save a lot of time. It takes quite a long time to collect the in-game currency “Blue Essences” and some heroes are really expensive. The weekly rotation lets you play 16 champions for free every week.
Cosmetic items such as skins can be bought for real money, but sometimes you can also collect them as random rewards or during special events. In summary, you don’t have to spend a cent to have fun in LoL.
Other useful beginner tips that LoL doesn’t tell you directly:
- The lane layout is (usually) always the same, one champion plays on top (“Top”), one in the middle (“Mid”), two together on the lower lane (“ADC” and “Support”) and one in the jungle in between (“Jungler”).
- It’s best not to buy a bunch of champions right away, but first try out the different roles. Due to the free rotation, 16 new characters are available every week, which you can test without obligation.
- As long as you don’t play ranked matches, you don’t have to worry too much about the meta. Sure, a few champions are always stronger than the rest, but in normal PvP many paths lead to the enemy base. In Ranked, of course, it looks different.
- To try out champions in peace, it is best to start bot matches. The AI opponents are pretty dumb, so they’re perfect for you to relax and bash them with all your skills. In PvP everything is much more hectic, so it’s better to practice a few rounds first.
- There are countless useful websites with guides and information. For example, you can always find the latest patch notes at Mein-MMO. Champion.gg shows you the best item builds, and of course you can get tips on the individual characters in the official Champion Spotlights on YouTube.
So what’s it like to be new to LoL in 2021? The game teaches you the basics, after that you have to play a lot of rounds to master your champions and get a feel for team play. The newbies in my immediate circle are all having a lot of fun with it so far, more about this is told to you by colleague Elena in her conclusion. And according to my impressions, the toxic atmosphere of the past is really within limits. You can now easily mute and report nasty players.
A note for story fans: You may have noticed that I haven’t said a word about the lore so far. That’s because it simply doesn’t play a role in LoL, apart from the individual sayings of the champions. If a good story is your main concern, then here are some cool alternatives that will probably suit your tastes better:
When you return to LoL in 2021 after a long hiatus.
Depending on how long you’ve been away, the current LoL will give you medium whiplash, as it did me. A hell of a lot has changed here since the early – Season s. It starts with the nearly 160 fundamentally different champions and doesn’t stop with the new elemental dragons and items.
For example, the Chemtech Dragon can give your entire team a sort of extra “guardian angel.” After death, each champion returns again briefly and can fire all abilities. Of course, such shenanigans make the gameplay around Objectives much more important than it used to be.
So be prepared to pay some more lesson money. For example, a Camille completely tore me apart because I just couldn’t remember the right counter play. And even a mediocre Miss Fortune became a problem because a new item shortened the cooldown of her Ultimate ridiculously.
Many of the relatively new champions bring fancy skill sets – for example, feel free to try to explain that cursed Aphelios in an understandable way. I can’t. So it’s going to be a while before you can develop some solid strategies.
But at least for me personally, that’s how it is right now: The return is still crazy fun. Somehow it’s exciting to see all the changes. It’s like visiting the home of my childhood after many years, which has been properly renovated in the meantime. Underneath all the new decorations is still the familiar home with all the rose-colored memories clinging to it. I’ve obviously been away long enough to now accept the new features with good grace.
And thanks to the current Arcane hype, I can forge even more memories in LoL right now with friends old and new. So, my advice to you guys: If you’re thinking about trying MOBA again, give it a whirl! Luckily, it doesn’t cost anything to try.
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