Riot Games has revealed that its League of Legends end of season event, All-Star, is not going ahead in any capacity this year.
In the pre-pandemic days, League of Legends All-Star was always the perfect way to cap off an intense year of competitive LoL. Fan-voted dream teams, content creators facing off against some of the world’s top players, and plenty more festivities gave fans some fun filler over the offseason. However, 2020 saw All-Star transition to an online format with underwhelming results, and now 2021’s event has been cancelled altogether.
In a blog post, Riot explains that the pandemic continues to make hosting the three-day event in-person unachievable due to travel restrictions and long quarantine periods. Riot also says that for players that took part in LoL Worlds in Iceland, many of them will have been subjected to unfairly short offseason breaks if they were to quarantine for Worlds and All-Star as well.
It also opts against hosting All-Star in an online capacity like it did last year. Riot concedes that playing online does not “truly capture the spirit of [All-Star], which is to bring pros, influencers, and fans together to celebrate the LoL Esports season with cross-regional competition.”
While Riot managed to organise and host successful LAN events for MSI and Worlds in Iceland this year, it’s hard to justify expending similar effort and resources for a three-day, end of season event.
For LoL esports fans, you’ll unfortunately have to wait until January for regional leagues to resume to get your next fix.
