Riftbound continues to evolve at a rapid pace. With Unleashed bringing the jungle experience to life through new mechanics like Ambush, Hunt, and the innovative XP system, we questioned key members of the Riot Games design team to dig deeper into the set’s vision and what’s next for the game.
We sent a few questions to Frank Skarren, Unleashed Design Lead, and Nik Davidson, Design Director for Riftbound, and received the following exclusive responses about the set’s vision, mechanical evolution, competitive future, and more.
Question: Unleashed’s core theme revolves around “Power strikes from the shadows” and champions growing through the Jungle. What was the guiding vision for this set?
Frank Skarren: “We started from the core principle of capturing the experience of jungling in League of Legends. Our very initial explorations involved trying ‘the jungle’ as a new zone in the game to fight over. While that didn’t end up working out, we learned a lot and it inspired the design of Baron Nashor adding Baron Pit to the game as an extra battlefield.
We next tried to capture the entire feeling of jungling, both farming and striking from the shadows, into a single mechanic, which was ultimately too constraining....
