Ahhh League Of Legends, a MOBA that occupied my university years. While I’d argue climbing the ranked ladder with my housemates were some of the best game moments I’ve ever had, I’d also argue giving up League was necessary. I became too involved, too close to the toxicity. But now League’s threatening to drag me back in with something I hadn’t seen coming – a Vampire Survivors-like PVE mode. No! I must resist (I will be on it immediately when it arrives).
In a recent developer update (embedded above), Riot developer Selina Liu called the upcoming PVE mode a “bullet heaven survivor PVE game mode”, which confused me a bit. What makes it a heaven as opposed to a hell? Is it uplifting, being swarmed by killer bullets? A path to enlightenment? To a nirvana where you ascend through ASUS ROG-branded pearly gates? Either way, I’d imagine it’s what you’d expect from a Vampire Survivors-like, which is to say a lot of enemies and a lot of auto-attacks.
“You’ll be able to fight against hordes of enemies by yourself or with friends”, developer Eduordo Cortejoso says. “I know a lot of us, myself included, have some pretty fond memories of previous PVE modes like Odyssey or Star Guardian, this time we wanted to make something markedly different”.
While there aren’t any more details to share, Cortejoso goes on to say it’ll be coming out alongside their “mid-year event” this year. They then showed off a screenshot of the mode in early development which I’ve popped down below.
Yep, it sure looks like a Vampire Survivors-like: A colossal mess of minions on screen, with Jinx at its centre. I think League’s enormous roster of champions and the universe they’re built upon make for a very strong ‘bullet heaven’ on paper. Each champion’s base attack would be whatever they started off with, you’d earn EXP from the minions to level, and perhaps select items from a list every time you dinged. I’m envisaging a mode that encourages and fast tracks you to fun, experimental builds away from the stakes of a traditional League game.