Building off the lore established in League of Legends and expanded upon in projects like Arcane, Riot Forge has been pairing the expansive world of Runeterra with game developers from around the world. The results have been impressive so far, with the turn-based RPG Ruined King and the side-scroller action game CONV/RGENCE giving players new perspectives on fan-favorite Chapions. The latest release from Riot Forge is set to come out in Fall 2023, and brings a more heartfelt feeling to gamers.
Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story puts players in control of the sweet-natured Nunu and his best friend Willump -- the last of the Yeti in the Freljord. Tasked with exploring the snowy expanse of the region in search of Nunu's mother, the pair set off on a heartwarming adventure full of excitement, danger, and music. During an interview with CBR, Riot Forge Creative Director Rowan Parker sat down to discuss the upcoming Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story, what made Tequila Works an ideal collaborator on the project, contrasting the sweet title character with the complex villainy of Lissandra, and why the game always needed to have a dedicated "Hug" button.
CBR: We spoke about it a bit with Ekko and CONV/RGENCE, but an important aspect of Riot Forge games is pairing the right Champions with the right developers. Why were Nunu and Willump the right fit for a collaboration between Riot Forge and Tequila Works?
Rowan Parker: When we go to studios, we don't have a specific game pitch or an idea. What matters is their studio identity, what kind of storytelling they care about, [and] what kind of gameplay they're thinking of. It's that initial discussion with the studios where we find out what they're looking for. After [Tequila Works Founder & Chief Creative Raúl Rubio Munárriz] spent some time looking through some characters, his first pitch was Nunu and Willump. I think he expected me to say no because they're not a super popular Champion. My response was the opposite. "Well, I'm interested! Tell me more." It's not a popularity contest. I think players have realized by now with Riot Forge. Initially, they probably thought we were just picking all the popular characters. But now there's a whole game for Nunu.
We pick the character who makes sense for the game. Nunu and Willump have great breakout potential. In League, maybe you love the character but you don't want to jungle. In an online MOBA game, their story can't shine. But here, their relationship can shine. They can go on an adventure together. There are a lot of heartwarming, heartfelt stories we can tell with them. It blends with the strengths of Tequila Works as a studio. They're really good at personal, intimate storytelling. It blends really well with the gameplay. Tequila Works, I think, has a history of doing very well with companion characters. That was the fox in RiME. Willump is like an evolved version of what they've done before. He is easily the most complex, most lifelike companion that they've ever made. Choosing Nunu and Willimp comes from Tequila Works feeling that the characters chose them.
What has it been like to see Nunu and Willump evolve through the development of Song of Nunu?
It's wild. Even the original Nunu and Willump, the really early versions -- who would have thought that thirteen years later, there would be this gorgeous 3D story where you can go on an adventure with them, meet other Champions, battle monsters, and go exploring with them?
What I'm most excited about is for players to really meet the characters and for more players to meet Tequila Works. There are a lot of players within the League of Legends ecosystem who don't know about them. They may have never played a Tequila Works game before. They don't know what they're in for when they start this game. It's a warm, heartfelt story. It's a fun adventure. Seeing Nunu and Willump on the big stage is great.
As a game-maker and a fan of games in general, what excited you about bringing Tequila Works into the Riot Forge fold?
In a word? RiME. It's an incredible game. If you haven't played RiME, play it. After playing RiME, we reached out and told them we loved their body of work as storytellers and artists. We reached out to them about working with us, and that's where we picked it up. There's a lot of RiME in Song of Nunu. They've taken what they learned from RiME and their other games like GYLT. They've been able to polish and level up the systems, the puzzles, the art, and the storytelling.
We also tell our studios that we don't want them to copy an existing game that they have. We're very strict on that. We don't just want new skins on old games. Players don't want to play that. Studios don't want to make that. No one wants to make the same game two times in a row. That's boring. When we're working with studios, they're building on their expertise. They're building on what they do best and hopefully taking moonshots when they make games with us.
Fans have explored Bilgewater in Ruined King and Zaun in CONV/REGENCE. What are you most excited for players to discover in the Freljord with Song of Nunu?
Like the other places we've been in the Riot Forge games, part of the fun is taking players to these places they've seen for years in concept art and bringing them to life. In the Freljord, having places like the Frostguard Citadel and the Howling Abyss realized in full 3D -- where you can actually walk around it? It's amazing. Actually going to the Frostguard Citadel is something you can only do in a Riot Forge game. On the flip side of that is being able to create new parts of Runeterra and new parts of the world and have them blend seamlessly with the parts that we know well.
I think it has been a good sign so far that in the previous Riot Forge games, players can't really tell what has always existed and what is new. That's usually a good sign that the seams are invisible. We've done our due diligence. I think fans of Riot Forge games understand that we're very diligent in our accuracy. We dive really deep into stories on the backstory. You'll be able to not just go to some fan-favorite places but to new areas that feel old because they're tied in with Champions they know and love from League.
As someone who has a soft spot for mid-lane AP Champions in League of Legends, Lissandra is an exciting choice for this game's antagonist.
Lissandra is a good villain because she's complex. She's a tragic villain. Tequila Works is really good at stories that deal with human things like loss. This game is tackling those things -- Nunu has lost his mother. Willump has lost all the other yetis. Lissandra has lost her humanity trying to save the world. She means well, but to her, the ends justify the means. They've all lost something. The difference is that Nunu and Willump have each other as they go on an adventure. Lissandra doesn't have anyone. She thinks she's doing it for the right reason. To her, a couple hundred dead are worth the world she saves. She's not easy to hate. She's not a cackling villain. She thinks what she's doing, she's doing for the right reasons.
Music is also clearly an important element of the game.
We put a lot of work into the soundtrack. "Song" being in the title, we put a lot of work into Nunu's flute and the puzzles using the flute. But there's also the notate storytelling of the songs. The main song in the game is the one Nunu's mother, Lekha, is singing. The woman who voiced Lekha is also a songstress. She sings throughout the game. We were able to partner with Chris Velasco for the soundtrack. He usually does Triple-A Games. But he's friends with Raúl and the people at Tequila Works, so he was kind enough to help us do the soundtrack. It's incredible.
Music also factors heavily into the gameplay through puzzles and exploration. Was that always baked into the DNA of the game, or was that discovered during development?
Nunu players will know that the flute is a core part of his character. We knew we wanted to use it for gameplay, but it actually took a little longer to fold it into the story. There are the campfire sections with the wind chimes, but once we got down to the puzzles, we started to see opportunities to bring them into the other bits of the game. It feels like that thread where it ties it all together.
At the end of the day, it's the characters sitting down around the campfire and playing the next part of Nunu's Song. You're making the song as you go. It makes you feel connected to the music. It didn't all come together at the start. Early on, the idea of just having a playable flute was there. Where you could mash buttons and play the flute, but then it was like, "Okay, now we've got this flute. Now we can use it in all these different ways."
When did the dedicated "Hug" button come into play?
Before we even started one line of programming [Laughing]. When we're making a game and just like napkin idea-ing, we think, "What are the things we want in the game?" As a joke, someone was like, "Oh, we should do 'Hug' Button!" And my response was, "Yeah, we should just do that!" If you press it, Nunu hugs Willump. That's it. That's the button. That feature has been all the way through the game, right from the very beginning.
I think we used it as a beacon to remind ourselves of the tone of the game. It really sets the tone of the game. This is a game that has a "Hug" button. We want this game to feel like a nice, warm hug. There's combat, there are puzzles, there's sledding, there's lots of little micro-gameplay sections because we're keeping it fresh. But we want it to feel like you're going on a fun adventure with your best friend.
Looking back at the evolution of Nunu and Willump over the years, what has surprised you the most?
Nunu got heavily reworked in League of Legends in 2018. That was really a big reboot of the character. It added a lot more color and context. It turned him into this joyful 10-year-old boy and his best friend, going on a wonderful adventure. It's a real contrast to almost all the other champions in League of Legends because they're just happy. They're just having fun. I think they might be the only characters that are actually enjoying life. In terms of League of Legends champions, I think we have a lot of edgy, dark characters. We do really well with that. We don't have a lot of characters that are like these two. So I think that makes them pretty unique.
Why is it important for Riot Forge to explore the lives and stories of these characters?
The world of Runeterra and the champions of League are the things that will probably live beyond any one game. Long after particular iterations of MOBA as a genre come and go, the characters of the world are what will live on. Things like Legend of Zelda, people aren't necessarily still playing Zelda on the Super Nintendo. But the characters have lived on through generations. It's the characters that you know that live on. It's not any one particular game or incarnation of it. With Forge Games, we're betting on our IP. We are betting on our world and our characters. We think that they're really cool.
The more people that could come and enjoy them, the better -- even if they don't want to go and play a hardcore MOBA on PC. Who knows if ten or twenty years from now, if any one game will still exist? But if we've had years and years of investing in our world and characters, that will be the thing that lives on. No one goes out there and gets a tattoo of a mouse and keyboard. They get a tattoo of Ekko. The point of Riot Forge is to live up to the expectations of someone with a Nunu tattoo. They've been probably playing this character for a decade, having this boy whisper in their ear. Now they're going to play his game. We want to delight that person. That's why we do it.
Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story will be released in the Fall of 2023.