- Wild Rift is already being looked at as the next big thing in mobile esports.
- Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is stepping up their game with Project NEXT.
- Mobile Legends has developed an esports scene that is well-established throughout Southeast Asia, will Riot do the same?
As the League of Legends: Wild Rift launch date draws closer, other MOBAs like Mobile Legends and Arena of Valor are sure to get a run for their money. With numerous favourable reviews during its Alpha and Beta stages, Wild Rift is already being looked at as the next big thing in mobile esports. Wild Rift’s biggest competitor right now, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is stepping up their game with Project NEXT so their players have plenty of reasons to continue playing their game.
While Mobile Legends is somewhat a second-generation MOBA that came out after MARVEL Super War and around the time of Vainglory, Wild Rift can be considered a third-generation mobile MOBA. These games have a four-year gap in between them which invariably means that there are many technical differences and differences in execution. Plus, Wild Rift borrows heavily from its parent game, League of Legends, while Mobile Legends doesn't have such restrictions.
Gameplay Comparison
- In Wild Rift, the map is divided into 4 parts, namely Top Lane, Mid Lane and Bot Lane. The rest of the map is considered part of the Jungle. Mobile Legends has a similar structure.
- Wild Rift has a Rune page that requires all the players to choose the suitable runes for their champions before the game starts. All Runes are available in the game free of cost. Mobile Legends’ counterpart for Runes are Emblems which require the player to use coins to upgrade these. The higher the emblems, the stronger your hero.
- In Wild Rift, gold and experience are one of the more important parts of the game. To get gold and XP, you need to last hit the minions in order to get the gold and XP for your champion. You can get the XP if a champion is next to minions that die you won't get any gold. For Mobile Legends, all heroes will get both (reduced amount of) gold and XP even if they don’t last hit the minions.
- There is only one way to buy or upgrade your items and that is by going back to the base either by walking or using Recall. Mobile Legends has it much easier than Wild Rift. You can buy items from anywhere on the map.
- Every champion needs to pick one spell before the match starts in Wild Rift. In Mobile Legends, you can only pick one spell that is used to have more abilities in the game.
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Esports Scene
Over the years Mobile Legends has developed an esports scene that is well-established throughout Southeast Asia. The game showed its popularity and strength when it became among the first games to be included as a medal event at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games. The tournament thriving Mobile Legends Professional League whose Season 6 iteration has so far fetched in nearly 300k average viewership. There’s no doubt that Mobile Legends has been one of the fastest-growing mobile esports and made a name for itself as the foremost mobile MOBA.
On the other hand, Wild Rift is developed and published by a developer that has established one of the world’s largest games and esport scenes. Riot Games, the mind behind League of Legends and now Wild Rift has a name for itself in the esports scene because of how well-developed their various Leagues have been. LPL, LEC, LCK, LCS and of course, Worlds are globally renowned for their structure, player support and production. If Riot chooses to invest into Wild Rift with equal vigour, with community backing, Riot can certainly topple Moonton’s creation.
Nevertheless, an interesting point of contention would be Southeast Asia. Mobile Legends has 75 million players with the large majority in this region. Also, most mobile esports are insanely popular in this place in the world, especially mobile MOBAs. The rest of the world is yet to pick up on mobile MOBAs and Wild Rift could be the getaway. Whether the rest of the world will pick up Wild Rift with the same enthusiasm as Southeast Asia did for Mobile Legends, just because it’s League of Legends on mobile, remains to be seen.
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