At the end of the day, Ruined King: A League of Legends story is great RPG for two sets of fans. League players (and those from other Riot games) get the opportunity to explore worlds they may have heard about, but never visited. For those unfamiliar with League, you get the opportunity to explore a land of pirates in an accessible story-driven RPG and expose yourself to Runeterra's universe. The story is compelling and beautifully told, and the lands of Bilgewater and Shadow Isles are full of secrets. While it's great you need not grind, the combat system feels like it was changed for the sake of change. Airship Syndicate knocked it out of the park in most ways (be it soundtrack, world design, storytelling, and gameplay), and I'm so excited to see more!
Ruined King: A League of Legends Story was announced in Fall of 2020, and League of Legends fans like me became incredibly excited to explore the land of Runeterra in Riot Forge’s RPG. Not to be confused with Riot Games, League’s developers, Riot Forge is a publishing initiative comprised of Riot Games and other developers; Airship Syndicate developed this game. Ruined King was set to release with Riot’s first cross-game event, Sentinels of Light. However, Sentinels of Light came and went, and we heard little about Ruined King…until earlier this November. Ruined King was worth the wait, and I’m having a blast with Airship Syndicate’s story-driven RPG.
Let’s get this out of the way before I continue: No. You need not have invested any time into playing League of Legends before playing Ruined King. You don’t even need to know about League characters at all, really, because the game tells you more of a story than League has even been capable of telling. If you do have experience with League, then you might appreciate some easily missable dialogue from NPCs, but you won’t have any sort of “upper hand” in familiarizing yourself with the game.
In Ruined King, you manage a group of characters (aka champions) that you would expect to see in League of Legends, but with some of their abilities modified for turn-based RPG combat. These characters also fulfill typical RPG “roles” of being a tank, healer, and damage dealer, but with a twist. For example, Illaoi is a Kraken priestess (think Cthulu) who is capable of healing herself and her allies while also dishing out varying amounts of damage with her summoned spirit tentacles. Yasuo is a swordsman who relies on landing critical hits and applying massive amounts of damage onto a single target. Braum is a gigantic shieldbearer with Poro companions (think small fluffballs with gigantic tongues) who focuses on shielding allies and stunning enemies.
Equipment management is not a chore in Ruined King, making this more accessible for audiences of RPG fans and those unfamiliar with the genre. If anything, I spent more time looking for equipment that looked cool instead of having combat perks, as the weapons you equip change your characters’ models. For those of you who purchase the Deluxe or Collector’s Editions, you get unique Poro-themed weapons for Braum and Illaoi. (For those of you with League knowledge, seeing Illaoi walking around with a gigantic Poro was awesome and makes me want a Poro skin for her in League of Legends).
For the most part, seeing these characters exist in an RPG feels right, as they were created and balanced around typical RPG tropes. Outside of battle, you’re free to mix and match combat abilities on your characters and pivot them into more specific niches, but in no way are you punished for creating characters that exist as jacks of all trades. You have almost as much freedom to play as you want similar to what you might find in something like the Bravely series (albeit, with much fewer “roles”). On higher difficulties, you should expect to see some more of your battle choices matter, but I would prefer the accessibility and flexibility that’s found in most of the Ruined King rather than being shoehorned into a very specific combat pattern in order to reach the end.
Combat, however, is where things get strange. While the combat can best be described as turn-based, Airship Syndicate has added a level of nuance to combat that I am not sure is truly needed. All characters have “instant” zero-cost abilities that are consistent with each other: Attacking, Shielding, and Taunting. These abilities will occur instantly, making them an easier choice for completing most battles. The “Laning” system exists beyond that, allowing all your characters to spend mana to use their niche abilities. Similar to the Bravely series’ frontloaded combat approach, where you might wager time (in the form of your turns) to chain attacks and deal varying amounts of damage depending on how much time you’ve spent, Ruined King‘s combat system applies a backloaded approach. You can choose to attack in the “speed” lane, meaning you deal less damage but you attack sooner. Or, you can opt into the “power” lane, meaning you deal much more damage but you attack much later (sometimes after enemies were able to attack you twice!). To add additional variation, some battles have “lane conditions” in the form of healing, critical damage boosts, shields, and poison. Swapping to a specific lane moves your attacking position on the lane field, meaning if you’re not careful, your “power” lane ability will place you outside of the healing box, or even worse, in the poison box.
I’m happy to say that “grinding” (a frequent gameplay lever in RPGs used for advancement) is in no way required in Ruined King, but the battles themselves end up feeling grindy and repetitive. Playing on Normal difficulty allowed me to use any ability I wanted, but battles went much faster when I relied on instant abilities rather than the lane abilities. Even more, the lane abilities cost mana, and it ended up being more trouble than it was worth to spend mana on powerful attacks (except for healing, as Illaoi’s heal is very helpful). I ended up using my lane abilities to dodge the poison conditions rather than trying to chain abilities together, making the combat less of a “puzzle” and more of a “hot potato” experience. I’m sure higher difficulties may force you into branching out, but I don’t expect you to take that burden on yourself.
Exploring Bilgewater and the Shadow Isles (of League of Legends’ land of Runeterra) is a treat, and there’s quite a lot to discover. While the story is fairly linear, you’re not punished for branching off into the weeds to seek out sidequests. My first night of playing, I spent several hours just walking around Bilgewater and seeing what I could find. I accidentally found myself in a dungeon that was meant for later, and the game’s interface was quick to point out that the enemies within were several levels above me. Elsewhere, I was able to complete simple sidequests (some of which involved battles) to earn currency and materials (and you earn a ton of materials, at least on Normal difficulty). I’ve yet to use half of these materials, making me wonder how much it’s worth to seek out and complete these sidequests. On the NPC side, much of the NPCs have limited dialogue trees that add context rather than give you hints on what to do next, but there were moments where my League knowledge came in handy when listening in on an inside joke. Even if you didn’t have League knowledge, you’re only missing out on nudge nudge wink wink moments.
The worlds of Bilgewater and the Shadow Isles feel alive thanks to the incredible soundtrack that Gareth Coker and Riot Forge have created. Several years ago, League of Legends featured a limited-time event, “Burning Tides,” that reinvented the stories of several of the characters now found in Ruined King. Burning Tides featured new pirate-themed music for several of the League of Legends maps that became incredibly popular among many players, myself included. Ruined King features some of these classic songs, as well as so many more (almost 60 original tracks in total!). Exploring Bilgewater and hearing the pleasant combinations of wind and string instruments is wonderful, and the music fluidly changes as you play. I can go on about the music, but I would rather simply assure you that the soundtrack of Ruined King is incredible and adds a level of depth to this RPG that others should follow. If you’re a fan of in-game music, you’re going to be pleased with what Ruined King has to offer.
My final critique of Ruined King is that of its character selections. As of late 2021, League of Legends boasts nearly 150 characters of varying designs and backstories. While some fulfill character tropes (like a swordsman looking to redeem himself — Yasuo), others are incredibly unique and hardly present in much of Riot’s games (such as a furry warlord with a shotgun who rides a chicken/velociraptor hybrid and screams about tacos — Kled). I’m very happy to see bulkier characters take a prominent role in Ruined King, as many RPGs tend to favor specific body/character types. Quite frankly, there are too many RPGs featuring busty broads, scantily clad females, and edgy swordsmen with dark and mysterious pasts; there are not enough Illois and Braums. In Ruined King, characters like Ahri and Yasuo feel shoehorned in for the sake of telling a compelling story with League’s most popular characters. Like, why is a samurai showing up in a pirate town? Ruined King missed a great opportunity to tell unique stories about more of the currently-less-popular characters, and it kills me to see this missed opportunity. Why must we forget Yorick Mori?
Finally, it would be worth noting that completing the story is nowhere near a lengthy chore nor a brisk afternoon task. I’ve read that some folks have completed the story in around 30 hours, and others over 100(!!) hours. I’m set to complete it at around 60 hours assuming I stop getting sidetracked in the fishing minigame and completing sidequests. If you want an RPG to hold you over during the holiday break, or even over several weekends, I’m confident that Ruined King will keep you afloat (unless you’re deadset on speedrunning the story).
At the end of the day, Ruined King: A League of Legends story is great RPG for two sets of fans. League players (and those from other Riot games) get the opportunity to explore worlds they may have heard about, but never visited. For those unfamiliar with League, you get the opportunity to explore a land of pirates in an accessible story-driven RPG and expose yourself to Runeterra’s universe. The story is compelling and beautifully told, and the lands of Bilgewater and Shadow Isles are full of secrets. While it’s great you need not grind, the combat system feels like it was changed for the sake of change. Airship Syndicate knocked it out of the park in most ways (be it soundtrack, world design, storytelling, and gameplay), and I’m so excited to see more!
