Inspired by Defense of the Ancients, a custom map for Warcraft III, Riot's founders sought to develop a stand-alone game in the same genre.

During a match, champions become more powerful by collecting experience points, earning gold, and purchasing items to defeat the opposing team.

In League's main mode, Summoner's Rift, a team wins by pushing through to the enemy base and destroying their "Nexus", a large structure located within.

However, negative and abusive in-game player behavior, criticized since the game's early days, persists despite Riot's attempts to fix the problem.

In 2019, League regularly peaked at eight million concurrent players, and its popularity has led to tie-ins such as music, comic books, short stories, and the animated series Arcane.

Domestic and international events have been broadcast on livestreaming websites such as Twitch, YouTube, Bilibili, and the cable television sports channel ESPN.

League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game in which the player controls a character ("champion") with a set of unique abilities from an isometric perspective.

[5][6] In the main game mode, Summoner's Rift, items are purchased through a shop menu available to players only when their champion is in the team's base.

[14] Non-player characters known as minions are generated from each team's Nexus and advance towards the enemy base along three lanes guarded by turrets: top, middle, and bottom.

[38] Riot Games' founders Brandon Beck and Marc Merill had an idea for a spiritual successor to Defense of the Ancients, known as DotA.

[39] Phillip Kollar of Polygon noted that Blizzard Entertainment supported Warcraft III with an expansion pack, then shifted their focus to other projects while the game still had players.

[54] In September 2024, Screen Actors Guild for radio and television placed League of Legends on a list barring the union's members from working on the game.

Several forms of purely cosmetic customization—for example, "skins" that change the appearance of champions—can be acquired after buying an in-game currency called Riot Points (RP).

[68] Sociologist Matt Watson said the plot and setting were bereft of the political themes found in other role-playing games, and presented in reductive "good versus evil" terms.

[68][70] Luke Plunkett wrote for Kotaku that, although the change would upset long-term fans, it was necessary as the game's player base grew in size.

[85][86] The variety offered by the champion roster was described by Steven Strom of PC Gamer as "fascinating";[87] Jackson pointed to "memorable" characters and abilities.

[86] While reviewers were pleased with the diverse array of play styles offered by champions and their abilities,[86][82][87] Strom thought that the female characters still resembled those in "horny Clash of Clans clones" in 2018.

GameSpot's Tyler Hicks wrote that new players would pick up League of Legends quicker than DotA and that the removal of randomness-based skills made the game more competitive.

[86] Strom said the game was fast-paced compared to Dota 2's "yawning" matches, but slower than those of Blizzard Entertainment's "intentionally accessible" MOBA Heroes of the Storm (2015).

[106][107][108] At the 39th Sports Emmy Awards in 2018, League of Legends won Outstanding Live Graphic Design for the 2017 world championship; as part of the pre-competition proceedings, Riot used augmented reality technology to have a computer-generated dragon fly across the stage.

According to Jeffrey Lin, the lead designer of social systems at Riot Games, the majority of negative behavior is committed by players "occasionally acting out".

[118] To that effect, Riot reworked the "Honor system" in 2017, allowing players to award teammates with virtual medals following games, for one of three positive attributes.

[120] Online viewership and in-person attendance for the game's esports events outperformed those of the National Basketball Association, the World Series, and the Stanley Cup in 2016.

[123] The company sells streaming rights to the game;[51] the North American league playoff is broadcast on cable television by sports network ESPN.

[139] The scene has attracted investment from businesspeople otherwise unassociated with esports, such as retired basketball player Rick Fox, who founded his own team.

[156] After a two-year hiatus, in August 2020, Riot Games released "The Baddest", the pre-release single for All Out, the five-track debut EP from K/DA which followed in November that year.

[157] In 2019, Riot created a virtual hip hop group called True Damage,[158] featuring the champions Akali, Yasuo, Qiyana, Senna, and Ekko.

[160] In 2023, Riot formed Heartsteel, a virtual boy band, comprising the champions Aphelios, Ezreal, Kayn, K'Sante, Sett, and Yone.

[162][163] Shannon Liao of The Verge noted that the comic books were "a rare opportunity for Riot to showcase its years of lore that has often appeared as an afterthought".

[167] It received critical acclaim upon release, with IGN's Rafael Motomayor asking rhetorically if the series marked the end of the "video game adaptation curse".