For the past year, Riot Games has only been supporting the Wild Rift esports ecosystem in China and APAC, but the company is further scaling back. The Wild Rift League (WRL) Asia, which encompassed both regions, will now exclude the APAC region, bringing an end to Riot’s support for the region.
Image Credits: Riot Games
Wild Rift was released in most regions of the world by early 2021. Since its inception, Riot Games bet big on esports for the game, hoping to compete with the likes of Arena of Valor and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB), which had developed competitive structures. The company had once said that it wanted to make Wild Rift the “first truly global mobile esport” and that it was committed to the long-term plans for the game.
It seems now that those “long-term” plans won’t involve Riot Games at all, which is handing over the mantle in all regions except China to third-party and community tournaments.
Image Credits: Riot Games
In a statement earlier today, Riot revealed that the Wild Rift League (WRL) will no longer include the APAC region. The reason behind this was the same as John Needham, the president of esports at Riot Games, had stated back in November 2022, when he announced that the company would be stopping support for Wild Rift esports tournaments globally, except in Asia.
Riot stated that it wanted to “pivot to a model that relies on grassroots and community-led competitions.” The company added that this was the “most sustainable and enabling path for APAC.”
It’s not surprising to see Riot removing APAC from the WRL. Both seasons of the WRL in 2023 couldn’t touch 10,000 peak viewers outside China, per Esports Charts.
However, paving the way completely for third-party tournaments is a questionable move for the future of the game, especially at a time when MLBB and Honor of Kings are investing huge sums into their esports ecosystems.
Nova Esports were the winners of the Wild Rift Global Championship Icons 2022 – the first and only world championship for the game. (Image Credits: Riot Games)
Despite these detrimental changes to esports for Wild Rift, Riot Games has been constantly updating the MOBA game with new content. While the game still has a strong and dedicated community and is certainly not dead, the lack of support for content creators and esports will hamper any growth in its current player base.
However, the game is still very competitive, and many would argue provides a better experience than the likes of MLBB or Arena of Valor. If players band together to host grassroots tournaments and build big communities, Riot might step back in, which Needham said back in 2022.
But that seems really unlikely at this point, especially with the rapid rise of MLBB and Honor of Kings, the latter of which has announced a $15 million investment into esports globally.
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