Wild Rift leaves its esports series in Asia

Riot Games has unveiled plans to further develop the esports scene in Wild Rift. The developer, given the first experience, intends to leave his esports series in Asia, as well as abandon pop promotion efforts in other regions. It is reported that such a decision was made in order to focus on those regions where mobile disciplines are popular.

We have learned a lot in the first year of Wild Rift Esports and we are very grateful for the support from the community, players and teams from all over the world. A year ago we launched the first season of Wild Rift Esports. We have come with all the drive, ambition and resources that we provide to our core esports organizations. While we created an exciting sport in several regions last year, we decided to focus on where mobile esports and gaming thrive and scale down our own competitive operations in the rest of the world.

The Wild Rift esports ecosystem, which was only introduced this year, is being replaced by a new Wild Rift league in Asia, set to debut in 2023. The league, which consists of two splits each year, will include 12 teams from the former Chinese Wild Rift League, as well as eight teams from other Asian regions.

With the active mobile esports market in Asia and the level of competition in these regions demonstrated at Icons 2022, we are thrilled to bring cross-regional play to the Wild Rift Esports regular season for the first time. We believe these changes will give the community time and a runway to grow organically and determine what role high-level competition will play in their ecosystem. As the Wild Rift esports landscape evolves, we will be ready to keep up with the times.

The new Wild Rift Asia League will be Riot Games' first inter-regional professional mobile esports league and will replace the original Wild Rift Esports as early as next April.

However, Riot Games will relinquish sole control of the series, allowing third-party tournament operators including ESL Gaming, Esportsmaker, and the W1N League to host their own championships.