What is with this retcon I've been hearing about?

Icestar1186·Nov 15, 2014·1 votes·1,517 views

So, I've been seeing comments referencing a "Retcon" or "Lore Reset". Could someone possibly explain what is going on? I haven't seen any news about it at all.

10 Comments

ShínyNov 15, 20148 votes

So things officially started with this devblog where riot announced that starting immediately summoners, the institute of war and the league of legends as we knew it were no longer canon, they were disconnecting the game and lore completely. Riot has said that anything mentioning the league would be rewritten and anything that isn't yet is in a limbo state between canon and non-canon.

This new initiative and canon includes things like short lore in the client with serialized longer lore on the website soon™ (examples: Xerath Azir) the shurima and harrowing events and the sion teasers.

Theres been controversy with fans saying that this new initiative disconnects players from the game and leads to a very disconnected world and arguing against riot's justification saying that the league wasn't as restricting as the writers were saying. Riot insists that the league and the institue of war restricted their story-telling too much.

Athenes LuluNov 15, 20148 votes

Sounds like they got lazy trying to catch up to what they have already established (i.e. the JoJ) so they went ragequit mode and just decides to delete the IoW from existence.

And that they're too stupid to even make up excuses on why (insert name, I'm looking at you, Gnar and Jinx...) should join the League. The IoW rather gives interesting stories on how people came to be, even though it's full of "broken promises" since they never expanded anything.

Icestar1186Nov 16, 20141 votes

Thanks. Have they actually said anything more since then about what is changing?

ShínyNov 16, 20146 votes

Not too much but that's one of the major pain-points the community feels right now is that riot likes to do surprise reveals.

My own thoughts about this is with the way they're talking it seems like they have plans for almost every character to have a new story told about them. The way riot tells stories though many characters could be changed significantly.The shurima event had xerath undergo major changes to his character while skarner and ezreal went into a limbo where its possible that their themes and personality might have changed.

The MormonatorNov 16, 20141 votes

I personally agree with Riot on that idea that is restricted their story writing. I remember reading all these amazing back stories only to have Riot have to throw in some retarded reason that that champion had to join the "League of Legends" and the institute of war.

DiahaneNov 18, 20143 votes

I personally agree with Riot on that idea that is restricted their story writing. I remember reading all these amazing back stories only to have Riot have to throw in some retarded reason that that champion had to join the "League of Legends" and the institute of war.

While now we have the lot better "and now he/she/it wanders (some part of) Valoran" as a catchphrase!

Arby099Nov 15, 20146 votes

It was confirmed that the League and Summoners are non-canon, this upsets basically the whole history we have for Runeterra.

NorthernDruidNov 16, 20146 votes

Don't forget the part where they justified their decision with erraneuos statements about the old lore.

But yeah, for once we have a game with really well thought out detail on how the gameplay happens and how it works from a setting perspective, which on top of it all does a good job of giving the players an immersive role, and I don't really discover the game before they decide to rip all that straight out because apparently they wanted to tell other types of stories than the one they're already established.