There will never be a League of Legends 2; “I want my great grandchildren playing LoL”

The various faces of League of Legends have changed somewhat in the last five years.

League of Legends was released in 2009 – the year of Mirror’s Edge and Braid on the PC.

But its genre-defining style doesn’t date, and Riot Games have refused to let it age, applying rolling updates to its graphics and 100+ roster of champions.

The developers consider that a process with no end – they’ll continue to update LoL forever rather than build a sequel.

“I want my great grandchildren playing this game,” senior Riot environment artist Brent Critchfield told Polygon at E3.

Critchfield confirmed that Riot intend to release major incremental patches rather than sequels – and in doing so keep a firm hold of the 27 million who play LoL every day. That number has risen from 12 million recorded in October 2012.

That said, Riot do plan to eventually bring out other games unrelated to LoL – though they’ve never offered any insight into what they might be.

If you’re just jumping into League of Legends and want to know what champions to pick, check out ourbest League of Legends champions for beginners guide.

In January, Riot Games eSports head Dustin Beck told onGamers that the company planned to work on LoL for “decades”.

“It’s a sport like just like anything else,” he said. “Baseball has been around 110 years. I’m not saying League of Legends will be around that long, but we see the shelf life of LoL as hopefully decades.”

E3 is the celebration of the big reveal: the long-awaited sequel worked on in secrecy for years. Are you happy for Riot to miss out on all that?