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The apparently endless roster of League of Legends champions might soon come to an end. The developers at Riot Games have already set a deadline for when they will cease creating new characters to avoid scaring away potential players.
Due to its monolithic roster, League is unique in contemporary gaming. However, some venerable franchises can compete with the MOBA, such as Mortal Kombat (the Netherealm giant has 97 fighters) and Nintendo's Super Smash Bros., which features an 80-character roster.
Other character-driven titles struggle to stay up, including Overwatch (32, with more on the way), Apex Legends (23 across the main game and its mobile spinoff), and others.
While League of Legends' arch-rival, Dota 2, recently clocked over 123 heroes with the addition of Primal Beast in February, Riot's shooter Valorant has an expanding list now reading 19.
With four champions already released this year, Riot's thirteen-year-old franchise leader has retained its throne. However, the publisher confirmed that those happy times would soon come to an end.
League of Legends team considering "end point" to champions roster
League of Legends Lead Designer Matt "Phroxzon" Leung-Harrison admitted on a recent podcast called Broken by Concept that his team is already considering an "end point" where the roster will hit a big red stop sign.
The Australian claimed that when the game's final release comes around, Riot will probably cease introducing further intuitive champions to the game. According to Phroxzon:
"There are a few things that make a lot of champions unsustainable. One is if champions are unintuitive. Let's say I run into Thresh, he throws a hook, and it looks like a hook, but it just goes over somebody. You'd be like, 'what the hell is that? If we make unintuitive champs, making more of them is an issue because it massively multiplies the number of things you need to understand to play the game."
When is Riot planning to stop League of Legends roster expansion?
League of Legends users, though, need not worry right away as the max roster cap won't be implemented for a while. The Riot development team is more eager than ever to create new characters for their title.
According to League of Legends dev lead Ryan Mireles:
"Once you've learned the game and all its many characters, the game can start to become less engaging. Every new champion we create adds new gameplay to learn, which is one of the reasons why we ensure all new champions have a unique playstyle."
The most recent champion to join the roster was "The Joy Unbound," Nilah. Reworks are the next thing to come.
Finally, Udyr's kit and design are being changed to fit him into the modern League better, while Aurelion Sol is about to receive a much-needed upgrade.
