League of Legends really is a massive entity. As a long-time player myself, this is obvious to me. That being said, every time I walk into any kind of Riot event, I am reminded strongly of this fact. This time, I descended into the Red Bull Gaming Sphere in London, the venue where Riot and Double Stallion were holding a promotional event for the upcoming Convergence: A League of Legends Story.

Predictably, I was immediately met with bright neon lights and ‘Get Jinxed’ blaring over the speakers. Fans cosplaying the ever-popular Jinx and the man of the moment, Ekko, wandered around the room. As I sat down to try out Convergence, I had the thought that an indie outfit like Double Stallion was likely unaccustomed to the fanfare that accompanies a massive IP like League.

I held this thought in mind as I sat down with Double Stallion’s Daniel Ménard and Thomas Mir, chief executive officer and senior producer, respectively. The UK-based studio is known for its 2D action games, most recently releasing Speed Brawl — a combat racing game. How had Riot Forge and Double Stallion struck up a relationship?

“When we launched Speed Brawl, we submitted it to a few festivals, and along the way, someone at Riot Forge played the game,” Ménard began. “They liked the style and the way we were expressing action gameplay and then they contacted us asking if we’d like to do something in the League of Legends universe. I was like, ‘We get to work on something in League of Legends, are you kidding me?’”.

Ménard said Riot’s pitch was a surprise and admitted that not many in the studio have been League of Legends fans, though they all knew the IP. Riot’s offer came with no restrictions on what part of the League of Legends lore Double Stallion could explore.

Ménard explained, “That was one of the really great things about Riot Forge. They said, ‘Hey, we really like what you do, we like the way you develop your games. It was up to us to decide what story we wanted to tell. The champion that resonated the most with us was Ekko. He’s a fan favourite, and his time rewind ability isn’t fully explored in the MOBA because it’s a player-versus-player game. We had the chance to explore rewinding time in an action game, most time rewinding mechanics in gaming are in puzzle or story games.”

League of Legends has a massive amount of lore, spanning across multiple distinct regions within the world of Runeterra. However, to Double Stallion, Ekko was always the prime candidate for their game. “The minute we saw time rewind, we did an early proof-of-concept for it within Speed Brawl. We sort of retooled the networking rollback that we had already and we used it to rewind the game whenever you pushed a button. We messed around with it and thought ‘This has the potential to be very cool.’ That’s what kind of sparked it, and everyone said “Yeah, we’re doing Ekko,” Ménard said.



Riot Forge isn’t in the business of dictating how Double Stallion makes its game, Mir told me. They were chosen for a reason. “Riot Forge isn’t looking to do things that are already being done, they’re looking to do something different. They approached us because of what we bring to the table, action-packed gameplay and vibrant visuals. They didn’t come to us because we know the world, they came for the type of game we create. It was up to us afterwards to make sure we hired the right people. We got support from Riot as we were building the game. We had the knowledge to respect the fans and the lore, and then we made a game that was true to Ekko.”

Riot Forge has shown its commitment to scouting promising 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 23.

Posted: May 21, 2023 10:02 pm
Related Forum: PC Gaming Forum

Source: https://www.dualshockers.com/riot-handpickedindie-studio-league-of-legends-convergence-ekko/