CONVERGENCE: A League of Legends Story is a Metroidvania by Riot Forge, a publishing division within Riot that worked with indie studios to develop games set in the rich League of Legends lore, which I’ve played for over a decade, making me a prime candidate for playing them.
As you can see in the picture, this game stars Ekko, a hero child with time-altering powers. It’s a game that promises to immerse you into the Zaun/Piltover world, while dabbling in time-based mechanics.
How does it fare?
Time to Play with Time
CONVERGENCE’s biggest twist on the Metroidvania formula is time-based attacks. It attempts to recapture the hit-and-run/assassin playstyle that Ekko has in League of Legends in a different genre, and it faithfully represents all of his abilities in that game. This was an instant hook for me: as soon as I saw that I would be able to rewind time for a few seconds whenever I wanted, I thought this could be a unique experience.
Here is what late-game battles can look like.
While it certainly looks fun, and it can be, the game never really clicks until you have all of Ekko’s kit—in true Metroidvania fashion, CONVERGENCE has you unlock abilities as you progress. While each combat addition is cool (and you will eventually gain access to all four of Ekko’s abilities), there are a few arbitrary movements abilities that you need for traversal across the map.
However, I think there is a problem with the way difficulty is presented in this game. Accessibility has been a hot topic in gaming lately, and CONVERGENCE perhaps leans too far into that conversation: it lets you fine-tune nearly every aspect of difficulty.
While I can appreciate accessibility features, I think CONVERGENCE shifts too much control to the player, at the cost of the game’s identity. I can’t help but feel that a more curated experience by the developers would have been better, making the varied enemy design stand out more and forcing me to learn Ekko’s time mechanics in a much deeper way than I did. Instead, I ended up using the main Rewind mechanic as a glorified health bar.
The core gameplay of CONVERGENCE has potential, but it doesn’t ever fulfill it.
Blunt Dialogue, Blunter Characters
The biggest issue with making the world feel cohesive is probably how everything is written. This game reads like a draft—all of its characters speak in very simple sentences that seem almost blunt and matter-of-fact, and all of them speak so succinctly that it makes them all feel like empty characters. Below is a video that showcases one round of Ekko talking to his friends.
Almost all the conversations are like this. Worse still, you actually need to go back to “talk to your friend” several times during the story, as if I was supposed to be invested in Ekko having 20-second conversations with the people he seemingly spends the most amount of time with. I am not certain how this could have been expanded, but surely going to see people to have short conversations with them is not something that would make people care about the people of Zaun, which is supposed to be a big deal for Ekko’s character.
It’s also jarring that, despite the great character art, all the scenes involve characters awkwardly standing around talking to each other, barely emoting or moving around. This makes cutscenes feel clunky despite the strong 2D art being featured all over the game.
There is also a surprising lack of nuance for character examinations. This gets into light spoilers territory (feel free to skip into the next part of the review): Ekko seems troubled by the person he apparently is going to grow up as, but the ethical considerations of his character growing up are shown in an unfair and unreasonable light. Solving societal issues is complex, and making Future Ekko the villain for having more hands-on methods seems very unfair to him. He starts by suggesting killing Warwick, who is portrayed as a literal bloodthirsty beast preying on innocents.
To be fair, Future Ekko’s plans get progressively more unhinged as the game progresses, but I can only call these plans “stupid”—cutting all the nuance from his character. It completely broke me out of the story how certain plot developments are done in the third act of the game, but it all starts with the game treating Future Ekko as a coldhearted killer when his methods might be more practical than the young Ekko. Does that mean I agree with him? Not necessarily, but it’s a waste to have these two opposing character philosophies and never really examine them, always assuming that the more naive and idealistic Ekko has a better solution to the problems that Zaun has.
Ekko himself seems to be randomly meandering into the plot, which takes me into…
Cameos that Break the Timeline
CONVERGENCE also has several Champions from League make an appearance, and it’s a mixed bag in that regard.
I dropped the game at the start of Chapter VI, right before all the supposed payoffs. I was already struggling a bit at the start of it, but with a completed moveset and really hyped to see Camille in the game, I pushed through.
This is the chapter where Jinx shows up, and she shows up in a pivotal time in the narrative, just in time for the start of the third act, in what is essentially a side quest. It is a complete pacebreaker, and while I understand that from a marketing standpoint, having an Arcane protagonist show up is good for numbers, it made me drop a game I was already iffy with.
Camille—probably the video game character I have spent the most time controlling ever, with thousands of hours under my belt—gets a very cool boss fight. Of course I fanboyed over it—up until the point I dropped the game, she doesn’t spend enough time in it to make the flat writing a problem. She’s in and out quickly enough that the weak writing never undercuts this scene.
While this scene was undoubtedly extremely cool, and what Champion cameos should be, I’ve seen a bit of the scenes that come after it and it seems that Camille is being reinterpreted from this cold killer into a more caring person as the game progresses. Like I said, I’m not a lore expert, and I am extremely biased on this, but I at least enjoyed seeing my favorite Champion have a standout boss fight (and no, I don’t believe she would canonically lose to Ekko).
Warwick is another Champion that shows up, and he is literally just a big scary monster that stands in your way. This apparently contradicts his established character, but with no context of his lore, I thought his portrayal was also enjoyable.
Champion cameos have high points, but they also are seemingly forced into a story they don’t really belong in—if you’re dead set on having canon respected, this is probably not going to be a good sell for you, and I completely understand that. We spend literal hundreds of hours with these characters, and seeing them not represented properly can sting.
Speaking about lore…
Lore Without Lives
Another thing that this game attempts to do is develop the lore between Zaun and Piltover. From what I’ve seen and heard, it seems that Zaun and Piltover have a tense, but ultimately symbiotic relationship.
CONVERGENCE has a lot of lore about Zaun specifically, with a detailed codex describing inventions, enemies, gangs, locations, and a lot more information about the world of Zaun. Even if its representation feels like it lacks due to how it’s paced, if you’re on the hunt for more League lore, it’s undeniable that it’s alluring to know some of its locations and see some of the people that thrive there.
The Piltover side is much more limited, with some characters and enemies making an appearance, but the biggest missed opportunity is the relationship between Zaun and Piltover. There are shades of this with the Chembarons working with Clan Ferros, but ultimately it is concerned more with telling Ekko’s story.
Still, there could be ways to explore this from a personal standpoint—for example, why do people choose to stay in Zaun, if it’s seemingly always under Piltover’s thumb? How do people from Zaun those who move to Piltover? With weak character writing, it’s unlikely that CONVERGENCE ever stood a shot at doing that.
Final Verdict
CONVERGENCE is an okay Metroidvania experience on the gameplay side, with mediocre and underutilized story despite a mixed bag of character cameos and an expansion of lore in the League universe. I dropped it at 2/3 of the way in, with Jinx’s appearance being a complete killer for my experience with it.
Despite that, I thought it had some cool ideas—the time powers were cool, I really enjoyed the Camille boss fight, its art style is great even if the cutscenes are stiff, and there’s a good amount of expansion of Zaun lore.
Still, I would only really recommend this game if you are very hungry for more League lore, or if you’re super invested into Zaun and/or Ekko—otherwise, this game does not have much to offer you.
But what do you think? Do you maybe disagree here, and think this is one example as to why Riot Forge should not have been closed? Let me know down in the comments!
