From MOBA to Motion-Platformer – How Convergence: A League of Legends Tailored Zaun’s Champions

My title is Eric Angelillo, I’m the Inventive Director and Co-Artwork Director for Convergence: A League of Legends Story. I additionally co-founded Double Stallion video games 10 years in the past with a mission to create vibrant & transcendent experiences with gamers all all over the world. I really like making daring motion video games with vibrant stylized visuals impressed by the perfect of animation and comics.

Convergence: A League of Legends Story, is our new, story-driven, single-player 2D motion platformer that includes dynamic fight and distinctive exploration, and it gave us an unbelievable alternative to make use of our strengths as a studio adapt a myriad of Zaun and Piltover Champions from the unique League of Legends MOBA. With Ekko as our lead, it was tough to slender down the checklist of different Champs we needed to incorporate within the solid, however we settled on Warwick, Camille and naturally, Jinx the Free Cannon!

For Ekko, improvement actually began with one key drawing I manufactured from him grinding on a rail. I knew {that a} sport about Ekko needed to double down on not solely his time rewind skills and boy genius points, but additionally on his punk-inspired trend sense. The idea in query had a robust graffiti aesthetic and pushed Ekko right into a neon soaked post-punk skater vibe. This grew to become the premise for which we constructed the entire sport’s artwork route.

We opted to stay near Ekko’s traditional design from League, however tailored his design form language to incorporate numerous triangles and sharp angles. Astute observers will even discover that his silhouette is predicated on an hourglass form. His footwear have been barely modified to permit for sturdy arches permitting him to grind. Mechanics-wise, we tailored Ekko’s whole package of skills after which some!

Constructing a single-player sport freed from PVP balancing allowed us to essentially leverage Ekko’s potential to rewind time, so this naturally grew to become our core mechanic. However gamers might be thrilled to see his MOBA skills – the Timewinder, Parallel Convergence, Part Dive and Chronobreak – are additionally integral elements of the sport. Along with faithfully adapting these strikes, we additionally expanded on them by making them helpful exterior of fight as nicely. The Timewinder can be utilized to energy electrical sockets, Parallel Convergence can time-freeze collapsing platforms and Part Dive can be utilized to teleport by way of partitions!

A narrative about Zaun wouldn’t be the identical with out a go to to the Sump… and a go to to the Sump wouldn’t be full with out its resident Uncaged Wrath; Warwick. Warwick was one of many first Champions we explored by way of idea artwork as his biomechanical wolf profile is simply so enjoyable to attract. His sheer sprite measurement and complexity made him one of the intensive characters to animate within the sport, however we knew it might be price the additional effort.

Moveset-wise; our animators referenced the look of his skills like Jaws of the Beast and Primal Howl. We even tailored his leaping Final; Infinite Duress, however as an alternative of slashes, we had him seize Ekko and throw him towards a wall! After all, Ekko can simply rewind it each time… supplied he has sufficient Rewind Prices in his Zero Drive left.

Camille the Metal Shadow is an integral a part of Convergence. She represents Piltover within the sport, and acts as an unlikely ally to Ekko as they’re each in search of to take down the malicious Chembaron household referred to as the Poingdestres. Though Camille finally turns into an ally, issues initially begin on the mistaken foot between her and Ekko… Followers might be thrilled to know they must face Camille in hand-to-hand fight.

A part of why we selected to adapt Camille is that her moveset from League of Legends had a lot potential in a side-scrolling sport. Camille’s signature hookshots are utilized in League to shortly transfer laterally, nonetheless, in an action-platformer like Convergence, we have been in a position to make use of the hookshots to permit Camille to have unbelievable aerial skills. Because of this, her battle encounter requires Ekko to essentially dodge deftly, as Camille dominates the sector with each horizontal and vertical excessive mobility.

Along with the pace and agility afforded by her hookshots, League gamers will discover we additionally tailored Camille’s Precision Protocol roundhouse kick. And naturally, who may overlook Camille’s Final assault; The Hextech Ultimatum. Whereas we needed to adapt the Ultimatum’s limitations to operate vertically, the essence of capturing her opponents in a Hextech matrix stays the identical. For Camille’s artwork, we actually pushed her key options; lethal, tall, bladed legs and refined Piltovan magnificence. As beforehand talked about, we used triangular shapes as a motif for our character designs, and that is particularly evident with Camille’s sharp determine.

Jinx’s position in Convergence is exclusive in that she basically performs a distraction position in Ekko’s quest to save lots of Zaun. As an agent of chaos, she doesn’t assist nor straight impede Ekko, however her manic hijinks drive Ekko to need to cease her earlier than he can proceed on his journey. Jinx has so many followers in the true world, so we felt that even inside Runeterra, she would in all probability have numerous followers as nicely. In Convergence, Ekko discovers there’s a brand new chempunk gang on the town; the Inx. The Inx are like an unofficial fanclub for Jinx, solely as Ekko finds out, Jinx isn’t too blissful in regards to the thought of a bunch of chempunks ripping off her model… As an agent of excellent, Ekko is pressured to step in to cease Jinx from wreaking havoc on the Inx and in so doing blowing up Zaun and Piltover!

With all of the bosses in Convergence, we put numerous thought into making them distinctive, and a part of that was focusing each on both melee or bullet-based ranged assaults. Jinx naturally fell into the latter camp. All of her weapons from League make an look; Zapper, Chompers, Fishbones, Pow-pow and naturally the Tremendous Mega Dying Rocket! We additionally added a number of additional surprises like a full-screen missile bathe! For Jinx’s character design, we primarily based it on her Wild Rift design, however then added on our signature cell-shading and sharp traces.

Whereas it wasn’t possible to incorporate all of the Zaun champs, we did embrace easter eggs for every considered one of them. Gamers might even spot references to different Champions from exterior Zaun as nicely. We’re extremely pleased with Convergence and may’t watch for gamers to expertise it firsthand.

Convergence: A League Of Legends Story might be launched on Might 23, 2023. for Xbox Sequence X|S and Xbox One Sport Go members: Obtain the Convergence Jinx emote in League of Legends. Should you haven’t already, merely hyperlink your Riot Video games account to your Sport Go subscription and play League of Legends by 11:59 PM PST on June 2nd to obtain it.