Image: Riot Games
Bandle Tale: A League of Legends Story seems to be inspired by games like Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon.
Riot Games has revealed a surprisingly cosy new addition to the League of Legends universe: a spin-off game called Bandle Tale: A League of Legends Story. The crafting RPG appears to be inspired by slice-of-life games like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, following cute little creatures called yordles as they go about life in Bandle City. It might seem like an inconsequential addition to this universe at first, but a few Champions are set to appear in the game too.
Here’s a trailer:
This game comes from Riot Forge, the publishing unit in charge of spin-off games created by third-party developers. Bandle Tale comes from Lazy Bear Games (Graveyard Keeper), and appears to be much more gameplay-focused than the other narrative-heavy League spin-offs we’ve seen recently. This crafting RPG has you play as a shy yordle in Yarnville, an isolated island whose populace is obsessed with knitting.
When your yordle’s 101-year-long apprenticeship finally comes to an end, they finally become free to see what lies beyond the portals that connect the rest of Bandle City. Unfortunately, a party the yordle attends goes horribly wrong, leading to all the portals collapsing and Bandle City being thrown into chaos. The stakes are a little higher here than Stardew Valley’s ‘just take care of a farm and make friends’ premise, but it still looks very cosy thanks to all the retro pixel art and adorable creature designs.
Players will make use of the yordle’s knitting magic and backpack house to restore these portals and fix problems surfacing around Bandle City, as its citizens struggle through all the chaos. To better tie it into the rest of League canon, you’ll also be able to party up with Champions like Veigar, Lulu, Tristana and Teemo. Five different islands will be available to explore as you gather crafting materials and meet strange critters, which you can then use to cook and build gadgets to delight the yordles. You can even host big parties to entertain the cityfolk, as the yordles tend to do.
Riot Forge’s League of Legends spin-offs usually feature very different styles of gameplay from the original MOBA, diving into various Champions and settings to further flesh out this universe’s lore. While spin-offs like Mageseeker are more focused on diving into the story of a specific Champion however, Bandle Tale seems like a much more relaxed adventure that will appeal to anyone who likes low-stakes crafting RPGs. The art alone is a real selling point for anyone who, like me, has put one too many hours into Stardew Valley and needs to while away the hours in another cosy little gaming universe.
Bandle Tale is set to launch sometime in 2024 on PC and the Nintendo Switch.