"League of Legends" is a MOBA video game and it all started back in 2009 with this one, which means it exists over a decade now, but is still a huge success drawing in millions of players from all over the planet. I started playing it I am not sure how many seasons ago after my then-girlfriend mentioned it to me because she started playing a little earlier and enjoyed it and until then I did not even know this game existed. I mean maybe it was just me, but I felt that it is not something like World of Warcraft that you constantly hear about or so. Despite how popular it is. Anyway, forgive my personal brainstorming now, but I will go on this way with this review here simply because it is impossible to talk about a chronological plot or story or something with a video game, especially one like this. There are several options you can choose from. Several maps like one that is all about 3-versus-3 matchups, while another, the most popular one, is all about 5-versus-5 matchups. You can play with human teammates in your room or also people from far away. Same in terms of playing against them. You can also play with four other characters that are computer-controlled against five other computer-controlled characters. Gee, you can even play all on your own against five other computer-controlled characters if you want to. So there are really many, many options available here. The thing that most people like to do, however, is play with four other human teammates against five enemy human players. You can pick normal mode or ranked mode. In ranked mode, you can constantly improve (if your teammates let you) because you get points added to your ranking for every win. At the same time, you lose points every time you lose a match, so once you have reached the ranking where you pretty much belong, it is a constant up-and-down. I myself managed to climb as high as Gold II during those days when I played the most. This is not super good, but also not too bad and there were two leagues below that with Silver and Bronze and each of these leagues included five divisions back then, so pretty much 13 divisions worse than mine you could say. Nowadays, they have included Iron down there too, so I only got to Silver lately, but I have stopped playing ranked games now altogether.
As for the leagues above Gold, there is Platinum, Diamond, Master and Challenger if I am not mistaken. If you get really far up there, chances are that a professional League of Legends team recruiter could contact you because eSports are not too different anymore compared to real sports when it comes to that. A lot of money to make and there is constantly stuff like competitions and even world championships. These world championships, however, are not contested in the format of nationalities, but there are teams that buy players. I think the very best players still come from South Korea, even if other nations are trying to close the gap. This mostly includes Chinese, Americans and Japanese, although I am not sure about the latter, but yeah if we take the Koreans and compare them to the best German or French players, the difference is massive, so playing for one's country would make no sense. These championships are broadcast online at least or you can also buy tickets and watch on location. This is pretty much one of the game's most inspiring aspects. You can get better and better and there is nothing to stop from becoming a professional athlete if you have the talent. Okay, you need an okay computer, but that's it. Maybe for football fans of Schalke 04, this feels especially tempting because they also have a League of Legends Team or at least did at some point. Other sponsors include Samsung for example. Away from the competition now and back to the game: I will focus a bit on the 5v5 mode now. In general, there are 4 lanes. The non-written rules are that one player from each team goes to the top (maybe the lane with the smallest chance to make an impact if the teammates screw up), one goes to the mid lane, one goes into the jungle and is very mobile (like a sweeper in football or "Libero" as we say here in Germany) and he is ready to show up on all three lanes to help his teammates. And finally, there are two people on the bottom lane, which is just called bot lane. These two are often people who know each other in real life or at least play together on several occasions and are not complete strangers because they need to harmonize even more than the rest.
The amount of players also has negative consequences and this is where maybe the worst aspect from this game comes into play. I am talking about the ways in which players interact with each other. There is of course an in-game chat and the consequence is that if somebody plays poorly or even plays poorly intentionally to upset the others (yes, that happens a lot), there is a great deal of toxic atmosphere to said chat. Be it insults, threats, passive-agressive rambling - you name it. It is all there. This has stopped many people from playing this game unfortunately, even if the amount is still insanely high. I mean Riot Games, the company who released this game, tried some stuff like banning people for good or just temporarily or forcing them to wait additional minutes before they can join a new game, but nothing has really stopped these unpretty events from happening. Still, you would not want to imagine what the situation would be like without the report function, even if many use it in a way that is exaggerated and report people for reasons that do not justify a report according to the rulebook. This is also a key reason why I refrained from playing ranked games now that the current season is also approaching its final days. It always ends around mid-November. Another reason would be what I also mentioned already that they made it much more difficult to reach new heights with the introduction if Iron as an additional bottom tier. Or maybe one reason is also that I pretty much only play three champions, even if I am pretty good with all of them and can use them on almost every lane (except support, which is one of the two bot lane roles). One thing I was not specific about is that in the broadest sense you can call League of Legends (or LoL as many call it) a tower defense game. The goal is to push forward as quickly as you can and conquer the enemy headquarter. Destroy their towers. While doing so, you level up from 1 to 18 max and can constantly buy new weapons, armor items etc. One game on the 5v5 map usually lasts around 30 and 40 minutes, even if 20 minutes is possible too and you and your teammates can also surrender early if the gap is already too big. Games longer than an hour are an absolute rarity.
The key to being successful is pretty much killing your opposition. May sound harsh, but it's true. Then again, they respawn quickly anyway, so it's not eternal or anything. And the next game, you can pick again from all champions. That's what the playable characters are called. These champions you can buy if you have enough points from playing. It's quicker to buy them honestly through real money, but if you have the time and enjoy the game enough, then you can also be patient and simply buy the champions with in-game currency. However, there is really, really a lot you cannot buy with in-game currency or actually you can, but with that kind of in-game currency you only get in exchange for actual money. So League of Legends is a gigantic cash cow for Riot Games to this day. You can for example buy boosts, but what deserves to be mentioned more than anything else is skins. You can give your champions a more individual look this way because certain colors are used or certain pieces of clothing that are not part of the original champion. I am usually somebody who never really invests money in games other than buying the game itself, but I also left a solid amount of money with LoL here and that shows you how tempting it is. And I even play only three champions, which says it all. Somebody who plays 30 champions will probably invest a lot more. There is for example a character riding on a huge boar in the original and you can buy skins that have her ride on a huge bear, a big fluffy creature and many others. I don't remember exactly because I do not play this champion. However, I must say that these buyable features are one reason why I deduct stars here. They are simply too expensive. Sure you can say say nobody is forced to buy anything and you cannot buy an advantage in the game in terms of climbing the rankings, but 20 Euros or so for a new skin, maybe more already, is not on the fair or tolerable side anymore. So the costs and also the toxicity are the major downsides to this game, maybe also that it is too addictive and may not be great for your health sometimes, even if this is somehow also a pro because of how much fun it is.
Finally, as I am approaching the end of my review, I can add that there is also some lore to all of this. There are in-depth stories about the champions in terms of who is affiliated with whom. Some are friends and others are enemies. However, all of this is not a factor to the game and maybe that's why almost nobody knows or cares about all this lore really, even if they put a lot of effort into it with cities they come from or the Void etc. I myself also don't know much there. I know a bit about the champions I play (Kennen, Karthus, Malphite), but that is pretty much it and I don't care too much either. Maybe because in the game it does not matter anyway and characters who are friends with each other can be in opposing teams or foes can be allies too. But I get it why they come up with this stuff, also for new characters (one every two months or so) because they somehow have to keep the game going. Besides, new champions, even if there are too many already, are the only way to stay new and fresh. Or pretend to do so. Ability changes only are not enough.
As for the leagues above Gold, there is Platinum, Diamond, Master and Challenger if I am not mistaken. If you get really far up there, chances are that a professional League of Legends team recruiter could contact you because eSports are not too different anymore compared to real sports when it comes to that. A lot of money to make and there is constantly stuff like competitions and even world championships. These world championships, however, are not contested in the format of nationalities, but there are teams that buy players. I think the very best players still come from South Korea, even if other nations are trying to close the gap. This mostly includes Chinese, Americans and Japanese, although I am not sure about the latter, but yeah if we take the Koreans and compare them to the best German or French players, the difference is massive, so playing for one's country would make no sense. These championships are broadcast online at least or you can also buy tickets and watch on location. This is pretty much one of the game's most inspiring aspects. You can get better and better and there is nothing to stop from becoming a professional athlete if you have the talent. Okay, you need an okay computer, but that's it. Maybe for football fans of Schalke 04, this feels especially tempting because they also have a League of Legends Team or at least did at some point. Other sponsors include Samsung for example. Away from the competition now and back to the game: I will focus a bit on the 5v5 mode now. In general, there are 4 lanes. The non-written rules are that one player from each team goes to the top (maybe the lane with the smallest chance to make an impact if the teammates screw up), one goes to the mid lane, one goes into the jungle and is very mobile (like a sweeper in football or "Libero" as we say here in Germany) and he is ready to show up on all three lanes to help his teammates. And finally, there are two people on the bottom lane, which is just called bot lane. These two are often people who know each other in real life or at least play together on several occasions and are not complete strangers because they need to harmonize even more than the rest.
The amount of players also has negative consequences and this is where maybe the worst aspect from this game comes into play. I am talking about the ways in which players interact with each other. There is of course an in-game chat and the consequence is that if somebody plays poorly or even plays poorly intentionally to upset the others (yes, that happens a lot), there is a great deal of toxic atmosphere to said chat. Be it insults, threats, passive-agressive rambling - you name it. It is all there. This has stopped many people from playing this game unfortunately, even if the amount is still insanely high. I mean Riot Games, the company who released this game, tried some stuff like banning people for good or just temporarily or forcing them to wait additional minutes before they can join a new game, but nothing has really stopped these unpretty events from happening. Still, you would not want to imagine what the situation would be like without the report function, even if many use it in a way that is exaggerated and report people for reasons that do not justify a report according to the rulebook. This is also a key reason why I refrained from playing ranked games now that the current season is also approaching its final days. It always ends around mid-November. Another reason would be what I also mentioned already that they made it much more difficult to reach new heights with the introduction if Iron as an additional bottom tier. Or maybe one reason is also that I pretty much only play three champions, even if I am pretty good with all of them and can use them on almost every lane (except support, which is one of the two bot lane roles). One thing I was not specific about is that in the broadest sense you can call League of Legends (or LoL as many call it) a tower defense game. The goal is to push forward as quickly as you can and conquer the enemy headquarter. Destroy their towers. While doing so, you level up from 1 to 18 max and can constantly buy new weapons, armor items etc. One game on the 5v5 map usually lasts around 30 and 40 minutes, even if 20 minutes is possible too and you and your teammates can also surrender early if the gap is already too big. Games longer than an hour are an absolute rarity.
The key to being successful is pretty much killing your opposition. May sound harsh, but it's true. Then again, they respawn quickly anyway, so it's not eternal or anything. And the next game, you can pick again from all champions. That's what the playable characters are called. These champions you can buy if you have enough points from playing. It's quicker to buy them honestly through real money, but if you have the time and enjoy the game enough, then you can also be patient and simply buy the champions with in-game currency. However, there is really, really a lot you cannot buy with in-game currency or actually you can, but with that kind of in-game currency you only get in exchange for actual money. So League of Legends is a gigantic cash cow for Riot Games to this day. You can for example buy boosts, but what deserves to be mentioned more than anything else is skins. You can give your champions a more individual look this way because certain colors are used or certain pieces of clothing that are not part of the original champion. I am usually somebody who never really invests money in games other than buying the game itself, but I also left a solid amount of money with LoL here and that shows you how tempting it is. And I even play only three champions, which says it all. Somebody who plays 30 champions will probably invest a lot more. There is for example a character riding on a huge boar in the original and you can buy skins that have her ride on a huge bear, a big fluffy creature and many others. I don't remember exactly because I do not play this champion. However, I must say that these buyable features are one reason why I deduct stars here. They are simply too expensive. Sure you can say say nobody is forced to buy anything and you cannot buy an advantage in the game in terms of climbing the rankings, but 20 Euros or so for a new skin, maybe more already, is not on the fair or tolerable side anymore. So the costs and also the toxicity are the major downsides to this game, maybe also that it is too addictive and may not be great for your health sometimes, even if this is somehow also a pro because of how much fun it is.
Finally, as I am approaching the end of my review, I can add that there is also some lore to all of this. There are in-depth stories about the champions in terms of who is affiliated with whom. Some are friends and others are enemies. However, all of this is not a factor to the game and maybe that's why almost nobody knows or cares about all this lore really, even if they put a lot of effort into it with cities they come from or the Void etc. I myself also don't know much there. I know a bit about the champions I play (Kennen, Karthus, Malphite), but that is pretty much it and I don't care too much either. Maybe because in the game it does not matter anyway and characters who are friends with each other can be in opposing teams or foes can be allies too. But I get it why they come up with this stuff, also for new characters (one every two months or so) because they somehow have to keep the game going. Besides, new champions, even if there are too many already, are the only way to stay new and fresh. Or pretend to do so. Ability changes only are not enough.