League of Legends players have been connected to their Summoner names for as long as the game has been around. Starting later next month, however, Riot Games is going to be getting rid of Summoner names in favor of a more consistent way for players to identify themselves across all of its games.
Starting on Nov. 20, League players will wave farewell to their Summoner names, as Riot will make Riot IDs the main way to display your name in the company’s games. You won’t need to do anything on your end, as the change will go into effect automatically on Nov. 20, and when you log in to the client of any Riot game, you’ll see your Riot ID on display.
Riot is making this change to give players a more consistent identity across all of its titles. If you’re a fan of Riot Games’ products, you’ll be able to consistently identify yourself in League of Legends, VALORANT, and any other one of Riot’s games. While this is definitely convenient for some players, it’s still reasonable to understand why others would want to keep their in-game identities separate and different across multiple games, especially if their League name, for instance, has been near and dear to them for many years.
Riot is making this change with League especially in mind, as the concept of a “Summoner name” has not had much relevance in the League ecosystem since Summoners were removed from the game’s lore several years ago. Back near the launch of the game, Summoners were the entities that quite literally summoned the champions onto the appropriately named Summoner’s Rift. But after a shakeup in the structure of League’s story to become more focused on the champions themselves, Summoners (and the need for Summoner names) have become obsolete. On Nov. 20, that change is becoming cemented in stone.
“This update is designed to better match the current world of League of Legends, create more fluidity between all of our titles, and streamline the way names work from a technical perspective,” Riot said in a statement earlier today.
To view your Riot ID and get a sneak peek at what your name is going to look like in-game come Nov. 20, you can head to your Riot Account Management page and see it displayed right near the top. This page is also going to be where you can change your Riot ID if you’d like.
After this change goes into effect on Nov. 20, players will receive one free name change and get another one every 365 days. If you’d like to change your Riot ID at any point in between the acquisition of your free name changes, you’ll have to pay for one for a cost of approximately $10.
