No more Sentinels of Light fiasco, hopefully!
LoL Lore: Riot Announce the Creation of One Unified Canon
Finally, the inconsistencies are going to get smoothed out, with dedicated effort!
The world of League of Legends is fully fleshed out, and players are deeply invested in the stories of their favorite champions. However, over time, inconsistencies have accumulated all over Runeterra's lore.
This is due to the fact that the lore itself used to only be established via independent short stories, and the various other media such as champion teasers and season cinematics, that did not work cohesively. Now, Riot are moving League of Legends lore in a new direction, of one shared, unified, canon!
League of Legends Lore - Smoothing Out Inconsistencies
One of the biggest event flops in League of Legends history was the Sentinels of Light event. An event which had fans figuratively breaking down the doors of Riot Games, due to how hollow the entire thing felt.
The reason for this was because core champions that are tied to the Shadow Isles lore, such as Yorick, were missing, while others, such as Pyke, were added with no rhyme or reason, leading to the entire event feeling out of place.
All Champions from the Shadow Isles
To combat this, Riot have announced that they will work on constantly updating the lore whenever they visit a region with an event or anything similar, in a long process of creating a single canon shared across all Runeterra games and universes!
- Speaking of Sentinels of Light, read the entire backstory in the new Ruination Novel
League of Legends Lore - Arcane is the New Canon
One of the biggest inconsistencies in League of Legends lore, which has far-reaching consequences, even more so than just a champion storyline, is the invention of Hextech.
Laura 'poisonpixxi' DeYoung, head of IP Creative for Riot, explains that the Runeterra Prime universe, and Arcane, will now be a shred universe and a new canon starting point for all future references.
All Champions in Arcane
Thus, it is now confirmed that Jayce is the most prominent developer of Hextech, instead of the Clan Ferros, as it was previously attributed. And as such, the lore concerning all relevant champions will be smoothed out in time!
League of Legends Lore - New Cinematics Will be Canon Lore
Previously when designing cinematics, Riot Games focused on showing the champions in the best light possible and showcasing the uniqueness of their design, disregarding the interactions with lore.
Now, new League of Legends cinematics, both the season cinematics and champion teasers, will be the new lore canon.
And, speaking of which, the newest upcoming cinematic will be the first step in doing just that, with the Skarner rework peeking over the horizon!
League of Legends Lore - Removal of Short Stories Confirmed
League of Legends lore was created by devs who answered fan mail, where questions regarding the origins of champions were asked. Over time, those answers took the form of short stories, that have shaped the world of Runeterra as we know it, for years.
Unfortunately, as was previously announced, Riot Games are not changing their mind and are removing short stories as a way of conveying the lore Runeterra to the playerbase:
"Short stories are something we've deliberately moved away from. [They] were an effective way to dig into character backgrounds more deeply when we didn't have other ways of doing so."
So, short stories are no more! But, if what Riot say is true, and players are interacting more with the new ways of lore development instead of short stories, having more LoL players interested in the lore can only be a good thing, in the end!