Riot Games Explains Why Wild Rift Icons Global Championship 2022 Will Be Held in Summer

The League of Legends (LoL): Wild Rift Icons Global Championship 2022 is set to be held in Madrid, Spain on 14th June. Unlike its PC counterpart which holds its world series at the end of the year, the pinnacle of Wild Rift competitions is set to be held in the summer of 2022. The esports lead for Wild Rift, Leo Faria revealed the reason behind this decision through a virtual press conference. According to him, this prevents world series tournaments from overlapping and allows organizations who also field teams for other Riot Games titles to focus on one tournament instead of competing through multiple titles all at once.

Why Wild Rift Icons Global Championship 2022 will not be held alongside LoL PC’s World Championship

Riot Games’ mobile MOBA title will officially kick off its first official esports season and shall feature teams from all over the world competing for the title of world champion. Leo Faria explained that having to host the Wild Rift world series separately would be beneficial in a lot of ways both for Riot Games and the community.

“That’s something we’re really excited [about] because we can get the team who works on the League of Legends World Championship and have them also work on Icons and on VALORANT Champions. So the idea of having teams of that caliber working across all of our shows is really important for us to maintain the quality and hit the bar that we want to hit,” said Leo Faria.

Fans who follow multiple tournaments and Esports organizations that field teams from various Riot Games titles can also shift their focus to one game per major event instead of having to divide their attention among multiple tournaments.

“We want to give the community, the game, the teams, the pros participating their moment in the spotlight, when all the attention, all the eyeballs are looking at our ecosystem,” Leo Faria explained.

While the Wild Rift Icons Global Championship 2022 will be held in the summer season, Riot Games is yet to confirm if this will be the case for future Wild Rift world series events. According to Leo Faria, "We always want to inform our future plans and future strategy based on results and how they are going, so let’s see how the first Wild Rift Icons Global Championship goes”.

As Riot Games continues to rise in the mobile esports market, Wild Rift continues to evolve in its esports ecosystem with new contenders entering the competitive scene to become one of the best Wild Rift teams in the world. It will be interesting to see if Wild Rift can fulfill its goal of becoming the first truly global mobile esports title.