League of Legends it really is a huge entity. As a long-time player myself, this is obvious to me. That being said, every time I enter any Riot event, I’m constantly reminded of this fact. This time I went down to the Red Bull Gaming Sphere in London, where Riot and Double Stallion were holding a promotional event for the upcoming Convergence: A League of Legends Story.
Predictably, I was immediately greeted with bright neon lights and “Get Jinxed” blaring from the speakers. Cosplay fans of the ever popular Jinx and man of the moment Ekko roamed the room. When I sat down to try out Convergence, I had the feeling that an indie company like Double Stallion was likely unaccustomed to the fanfare that accompanies large-scale IPs like League.
I kept this thought in mind when I spoke with Double Stallion’s Daniel Menard and Thomas Meer, COO and Sr. Producer, respectively. The British studio is known for its two-dimensional action games, and recently released Speed Brawl, a combat racing game. How did the relationship between Riot Forge and Double Stallion come about?
“When we launched Speed Brawl, we submitted it to a few festivals, and along the way someone from Riot Forge played the game,” Menard began. “They liked the style and the way we expressed action gameplay, and then they contacted us and asked if we wanted to do something in the League of Legends universe. I said, “We’re starting to work on something in League of Legends, are you kidding me?”
Menard said Riot’s pitch was a surprise, and acknowledged that few at the studio were League of Legends fans, although everyone knew the IP. Riot’s proposal comes with no restrictions on what part of the League of Legends story Double Stallion can explore.
Menard explained, “That was one of the really great things about Riot Forge. They said, “Hey, we really like what you’re doing, we like how you design your games.” We decided what story we wanted to tell. The champion that resonated with us the most was Ekko. He’s a fan favorite and his ability to rewind time hasn’t been fully explored in MOBAs since it’s a PvP game. We had the opportunity to explore time-forwarding in an action game, most time-forwarding mechanisms in games are found in puzzle games or story-based games.”
League of Legends has a huge amount of lore that covers several different regions in the world of Runeterra. However, for Double Stallion, Ekko was always a prime candidate for their game. “As soon as we saw rewind time, we did an early proof of concept in Speed Brawl. We kind of updated the network rewind that we already had and used it to rewind the game when you press a button. We were messing around with it and thought, “This could be really cool.” That’s what sparked it, and everybody said, ‘Yeah, we’re doing Ekko,'” Ménard said.
Mir told me that Riot Forge doesn’t dictate how Double Stallion builds their game. They were chosen for a reason. “Riot Forge doesn’t want to do what’s already been done, they want to do something different. They came to us because of what we offer, rich gameplay and vibrant visuals. They didn’t come to us because we know the world, they came for the game we create. Later we had to make sure we hired the right people. During the development of the game, we received support from Riot. We had the knowledge to respect the fans and the knowledge, and then we made a game that was true to Ekko.”
Riot Forge has demonstrated its commitment to finding up-and-coming indie development talent, having already published three titles under the label: Ruined King, Hextech Mayhem, and Mageseeker. Convergence will be the latest title added to its repertoire when it releases on May 23rd.