All the best parties have blacklights.

About this time last year, a relatively new development studio named Riot Games that hardly anyone had heard of managed to snaffle about US $7 million in funding. The gaming world looked on with interest, mainly to see if the CEO's would do a midnight flit, and then promptly forgot all about it (as is our wont) until the announcement of the upcoming League of Legends. Since about a hundred games are announced each week, we didn't pay much attention then, either - but the news that a couple of ex-Blizzard employees have joined the flock is pricking my interest.

The two new appointments, Tom Cadwell and Shawn Carnes, will join the game design team working on League of Legends. Both have impressive histories; Tom's credits include game balance on Warcraft III's Frozen Throne expansion, and location design on World of Warcraft, while Shawn's most recent official title, Lead Developer of Licensed Products, saw him designing the Starcraft boardgame and WoW CCG. Shawn is obviously pleased with his new position:

"Working at Riot Games is one of those once in a lifetime opportunities that is just too good to pass up. I am working with people that I’ve worked with in the industry before ... this place is a powerhouse of awesome."

Hmm, it sounds like we ought to be paying more attention to Riot Games, then! Other members of the team include veterans of varied projects like RPGs Ultima Online, Dungeon Siege, Heroes of Might & Magic, and Neverwinter Nights 2, as well as action platformers Jak & Daxter and Sly Cooper, and even Total Annihilation.

League of Legends is Riot Games' first major project, an online team-battle game combining strategy and RPG elements. Players control a persistent "summoner avatar", and choose from amongst available champions to command in battle. Both champion and avatar gain experience and levels, unlocking new abilities, further augmenting your abilities to rally your team mates and annihilate the enemy. Although a single player mode is available for practicing, the game's focus is on online multiplayer and has been developed with that in mind, including a bunch of delightful support tools like matchmaking, stat tracking, clan support, anti-cheat systems, dedicated in-game ladders and Leaverbuster technology.


Better keep an eye on League of Legends, which is currently in closed beta and expected to launch this year; you can see a few more screenshots and a trailer on the mirror.