North American fans will be able to play League of Legends on their phones very soon. Today, in a big event detailing how the year 2021 will be turns on, developer Riot revealed that Wild Rift – the mobile and console version of the game – will be released in open beta in the Americas starting in March. It is unclear on which platforms the beta will be available, but previous open betas were mainly on Android and iOS.
In addition, Riot outlined its plans to support Wild Rift throughout the year. This includes regular events like the Lunar New Year festival in February, a ranking season that starts in some regions this week and the addition of about two new characters each month.
The other big reveal of the event is related to Riot’s electronic sports ambitions. League of Legends is arguably the biggest competitive game in the world right now, and Riot is trying to do something similar for its tactical sniper Valorant. So it should come as no surprise that the developer now says that he is looking to create electronic sports scenes for his trio of turns on spinoffs: Team fighting tactics, Legends of Runeterraand Wild Rift.
Competitive mobile games like Honor of kings, PUBG Mobileand Fight Stars are some of the most popular in the world, so it makes a lot of sense for Riot to try something similar with its smartphone titles, however, there isn’t much detail about how the scenes will look yet.
Meanwhile, the developer also announced that this year League of Legends The World Championship will be held in Shenzhen, China. Last year’s event took place in Shanghai.