Given the deluge of bad news emanating from the games industry over the past 10 months, it was somewhat reassuring this weekend to sit in a crowd of 20,000 happy, passionate fans, watching the biggest event in the esports calendar: the League of Legends world championship finals. The event, at the O2 arena in London, was the culmination of a globetrotting five-week competition to discover the best team in the world. Never having attended before – mostly because the final is usually held in Asia, where the best players tend to come from – I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Would I be able to follow what was happening? Would I care? It turns out the answers to those questions were “sort of” and “hell, yes”.
For the uninitiated, League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena game (Moba for short) in which two teams of five players choose warriors from a selection of 170, and then battle to control a fantasy-themed map before destroying the other’s home base. The arena is divided into three lanes with an area known as the jungle in the middle, and each of the team members patrols their own specific section – like any traditional team sport. Adding complexity is the fact that all the champion characters have their own skills, weapons and magical attacks, and throughout the game, they also have to defeat monsters and dragons to earn experience points that make them more powerful. It’s both a deep strategy game and a bewildering riot of stomping warriors, galloping horsemen and levitating wizards.
This year’s final was between experienced South Korean side T1 and Chinese newcomer Bilibili Gaming (BLG for short). The latter were riding high after smashing local rival Weibo Gaming in the semi-finals, but T1 were the firm favourites having claimed the cup four times already. They’d almost been knocked out of the competition in an earlier stage, but apparently have a habit of charging back into contention just when everyone has written them off. In the arena, I manage to get a seat next to James Lynch from esports news site Dexerto, who volunteers to talk me through the action. He describes T1 as the League of Legends equivalent of the 1974 Dutch World Cup side – freewheeling, unconventional and filled with neurotic genius. Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, widely considered to be the greatest player in League history, is the master at the centre of it all – their Johan Cruyff. “His movement is so weird and unpredictable,” says Lynch. “He is so hard to kill.”
Before the final even commences, there’s a 10-minute mini-concert featuring US rapper Ashnikko and Linkin Park, boasting astonishing art direction with pyrotechnics, giant LED displays and dozens of dancers. The whole thing has the feel of a major sporting event mixed with a K-pop gig – a riot of colour, passion and stagecraft. In the hours leading up to the final, fans gathered at the venue, buying personalised merch, meeting friends from the community and of course dressing as their favourite League of Legends characters.
It turns out I was extraordinarily fortunate that this was my League of Legends spectatorship debut. It’s a thrilling encounter. Once the showdown begins, the best-of-five-games format gets pushed to the limit, with the two teams taking it in turns to slaughter each other for the first four matches. Throughout the final, Faker is the dominant playmaker, continually leaping in and out of skirmishes, taking down enemies and then somehow escaping with barely a millimetre of his health bar remaining. In the arena, we view the action on huge screens suspended above the stage where the 10 young players duke it out. Rather than separating us from the action, these displays draw us in. The crowd of mostly twentysomething fansloudly roar their approval at clever moves and chant when their side gains the upper hand.
The decider is a cagey affair, the warriors prodding and poking at each other while warily skulking around the map – until the whole thing explodes into a sprawling clash that makes the Battle of the Bastards look like a minor scuffle outside a kebab shop.
It was T1 that emerged victorious, but this was also a win for the whole concept of esports. The scene has struggled – at least economically – to live up to the hype of the 2010s, when inflated estimates of its global value attracted big investors and sponsors, which lead to oversized team organisations and bloated salaries for star players. Last year saw a slew of those organisations, events and tournaments closing, including Activision Blizzard’s much-hyped Overwatch League. However, this weekend’s event attracted a peak viewing audience of 6.94 million – most watching from home on streaming platforms such as Twitch and YouTube – a new record for esports.
It’s easy sometimes to think about video games as an industry, rather than a culture that brings people joy. Sometimes, it’s important to look beyond sales and viewing figures, and to sit in an arena with 20,000 adoring fans. Outside the O2 megaplex, I spoke to one attendee, Morgan, perfectly dressed as Aphelios (in his Heartsteel outfit, to be precise), who explained the appeal: “There’s such a competitive spirit, everyone is here to root for their favourite teams, but it’s very good-natured. There’s also so many different communities in League, it’s great to see them coming together and being able to bond over the one thing they have in common and are really passionate about. That’s the really beautiful thing about this.”
What to play
Released in 1996, the original Metal Slug was an exciting pastiche of the side-scrolling military shooter in which lone muscular soldiers took on whole armies of swarming bullet fodder. The brand has never really gone away, with dozens of sequels and spin-offs over the past 30 years – the latest of which is Metal Slug Tactics, which takes the look and feel of SNK’s franchise and turns it into a compelling, stylish turn-based strategy game. Here you assemble a team of warriors and face-off against the Rebel Army, using a huge range of customisable weapons and special attacks.
Acknowledging its heritage as a “run and gun” game, the emphasis is on movement and dodging, with characters powering up their defences as they take more steps, giving each turn a dynamic feel. And while there’s genuine depth to the strategic play, the isometric pixel art visuals perfectly capture the lighthearted feel of the series. Metal Slug veterans will love it, of course, but fans of Advance Wars, XCOM and Into the Breach will get a real kick out of it, too.
Available on: PS5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, PC
Estimated playtime: 20+ hours
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What to read
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PC Gamer has a great feature about an immersive stage production of Silent Hill 2 by Niko Wilkins, a student at Virginia Commonwealth University. I’m certainly looking forward to the West End musical adaptation.
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Thank you, Polygon, for this handy guide to the best board games of 2024. It’s a diverse bunch featuring everything from city building to alien spotting; I particularly like the sound of Burning Banners: Rage of the Witch Queen.
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GamesIndustry.biz has an interesting piece on the accessibility issues facing video game content streamers, including the punishing demands of YouTube and Twitch audiences.
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Minecraft fans looking to populate their Christmas lists may be interested in The World of Minecraft, a hefty new tome featuring lots of concept art, archive materials and interviews with the team at Mojang about the creation of the game.
What to click
Question Block
This week’s question comes from reader Turlough:
“I always avoided the FromSoftware games thinking they would be too difficult. Then, in 2021, I experienced a very painful bereavement and started playing Elden Ring. It helped me work through my grief and was one of the best games I have ever played. I have worked through all the FS Souls and Souls-like games, which also helped me through a particularly rough patch at work (I’m a child psychiatrist). Are there any other Souls likes that are as good? I’m playing Lords of the Fallen, which is definitely fun but lacks the magic of the others. I fear that FromSoftware have slightly ruined all other games for me, apart from the Zeldas.”
Thank you for your question and for your reminder that games can help us through difficult experiences. I hope things are getting easier for you. On the subject of Souls-likes, a lot of my colleagues really enjoyed Lies of P, a complex adventure based on the Adventures of Pinocchio – although the narrative is extremely dark. Alternatively, I really enjoyed the Nioh series from Team Ninja, which provides incredible depth in terms of the combat and weapons systems; the Nioh Collection on PS5 brings together remastered versions of the original game and its sequel.
If you’re prepared to move a little further away from the Souls archetype, I’d also recommend Hollow Knight, Stellar Blade and Nier Automata,which all contain elements of what makes FromSoftware’s games so beguiling and immersive.