Ruined King: A League of Legends Story (2021) Review
Ruined King: A League of Legends Story (2021), developed by Airship Syndicate and published by Riot Forge, grabs the lore of Riot Games' immensely popular MOBA, League of Legends, and uses it to tell a classic fantasy story of a ragtag group of misfits banding together to defeat a fearsome and ancestral foe. Released across PC, PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, the game blends tried-and-true RPG mechanics with new changes to keep gameplay spicy. Regardless, the mechanics do a good way of giving way to the real meat of the game, which is its story and characters.
At its heart, Ruined King is a turn-based RPG reminiscent of Airship Syndicate’s earlier game, Battle Chasers: Nightwar. Players navigate a narrative revolving around the imminent revival of the corrupted King Viego, a long-dead and widowed monarch on an eternal quest to find a way to return his wife, Isolde, to life by any means necessary. Although the overarching plot, a classic "heroes vs. the forces of evil" story, can feel somewhat predictable, its execution shines through compelling character interactions between gameplay sections, great worldbuilding, and outstanding voice acting by industry veterans like Matt Mercer and Laura Bailey.
The journey through Runeterra unfolds over a substantial 30-hour campaign, captured in a graphic novel art style that beautifully captures everybody's aesthetic and fits everybody together. The central characters are each explored through their own character arcs filled with themes of vengeance, self-discovery, and redemption. The main cast is composed by Yasuo, a lone travelling swordsman, Ahri, a fox vastaya who reluctantly must predate on human emotions to survive, Pyke, an undead harpooner who swears vengeance against all pirate captains, Illaoi, the unyielding priestess of a god who sleeps under the waters, Braum, a cheerful and giant folk hero with a heart of gold, and finally, Miss Fortune, the pirate queen of Bilgewater.
Although relatively static by themselves, characters have time within the story to tell jokes, share tales, and give each other advice on their journeys during the course of the game, which drives them to resolve or progress their character through outstandingly good chemistry with each other. Even though some characters’ development—particularly Yasuo's—feels abruptly resolved, overall, the narrative arcs and dialogues are compelling enough to keep players engaged.
Ruined King's strongest attribute is not only character development and chemistry, but also its narrative. While the combat is sufficiently entertaining to keep you playing, it's not really supposed to be it's biggest strength. It gives way to the story and atmosphere when it has to.
The story takes place in Bilgewater, a bustling pirate city, a lawless metropole where captains lead the government. The player controls the aforementioned party of 6 to fight against the Hallowed Mist, a dark and mysterious natural force that emanates from the Shadow Isles, and ultimately, King Viego himself.
Everybody in the game is also a champion from League of Legends, and the game even features designs that reference Miss Fortune skins and Viego skins present within League. For players interested in jumping straight into high-level competition, starting with smurf accounts can be a solid way to skip the grind and experience what these champions are like at the top of the ladder, up to and including Master LoL accounts.
For all intents and purposes, Ruined King is built to be canon to the larger setting of Runeterra. Nothing that happens within Ruined King necessarily conflicts with future stories like Sentinels of Light, either.
Combat in Ruined King is designed to be slow and strategic, featuring an innovative “lane” system. Players can adjust the power and speed of moves, creating tactical depth in managing turn orders and abilities. There's enough "right" ways to play the game that there's very little pressure in trying to figure out a strategy to abuse. However, early pacing of mechanics feels somewhat slow; as an experienced RPG player, I personally felt that the game handheld the player for a little too long. It's clearly aimed towards a newer RPG audience, but there's still some quality of life changes to help veterans out, like as speeding up combat animations when you get too tired of seeing them play out.
Ruined King boasts some replay value through item crafting and enchanting provides impressive depth, enabling diverse playstyles. This flexibility particularly shines in higher difficulty modes, which can sometimes be a fun challenge. Even on Heroic difficulty, strategic play and character optimization made challenging encounters manageable and rewarding, though never impossibly difficult. It's not very likely to ever make you rage quit, and it doesn't depend too much on random rolls and luck.
Despite the strong narrative and solid combat, traversal and exploration have mixed experiences. Environments, although beautifully rendered by a team of extremely talented artists, lack the diversity that most RPGs of this length would have. All environments alternate between the Shadow Isles and Bilgewater with some occasional dungeons. Then again, the environments might only feel repetitive because of the tedious backtracking and unclear navigation imposed by the lackluster map and quest tracker.
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The game performance suffers here and there from bugs and occasional game crashes, particularly on console releases. Most bugs have been fixed through patches over time, but there's still a ton left. A lot of these happen to be bugs that halt progress entirely. I haven't had an experience that completely screwed a save over, but some other players have reported bugs as recently as 2024 that completely break saves with hours of playtime in them.
Ruined King ultimately excels in leveraging League of Legends’ extensive lore and shows what Riot Forge can really do with the IP. It's a great choice for somebody looking to go through well-executed and classic story beats with some great character chemistry around the campfire, and some stellar development. However, a case has to be made that perhaps too much spotlight is put on the narrative.
You could have a pretty close experience to playing the game by simply watching all its cutscenes on YouTube. However, if you wanna dip your toes into an RPG for the first time, Ruined King may be one of the best games out there to do that. Ruined King is excellent at providing a good starter experience into both the RPG genre and the larger Runeterra setting. However, there's a case to be made that these
Our Verdict:
Ruined King is a beautifully styled RPG that serves as a great first step within the League of Legends universe. It boasts great visuals, deep characters and an almost flawless story, but also occasional technical issues and relatively simple mechanics, compared to other options in the RPG genre. (4/5)
The Good:
- Beautiful graphic novel-style portraits and environments
- Large cast of memorable characters who each excellently bounce off each other and develop throughout the main story
- Excellent voice acting
- Tactical and intuitive combat system
- Accessible for newcomers to the League of Legends world and setting
The Bad:
- While well-executed, the main plot is relatively predictable.
- Limited variety in visuals and environments
- Little replay value
- Weak map implementation and design
- Occasional technical issues and game crashes
- Higher difficulty tends to be more tedious than an actual tactical challenge
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