PAX: The Mageseeker brings magical action to the fore in League of Legends’ latest spin-off

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The world of League of Legends has been rapidly expanding over the last few years. From series like Arcane to spin-offs like Ruined King, the world of Runeterra keeps on growing. It’s the latter section where The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story fits in, handing a slice of the world to Digital Sun.

As the team behind 2018’s roguish action-RPG Moonlighter, Digital Sun take a similar approach to the world of League here, focusing on the champion Sylas. With the MOBA genre’s roots in RPG systems and Digital Sun’s proven talent for making a solid action-RPG, it wasn’t surprising that Mageseeker works. What surprised me at my demo during PAX East 2023 was just how well it works, and how the studio is pushing itself in the process to make a crisp, action-heavy but magic-focused game.

Mageseeker is the latest partnership from Riot Forge, the studio’s endeavor to publish games set in its lore from third-party developers. With this particular game, the Moonlighter crew took on Sylas, though it didn’t quite set out to at first. Animator and cutscene coordinator Josep Baño tells me Riot approached Digital Sun after Moonlighter‘s release. The studio put together some ideas, including one for a man who could steal magic. As it turns out, Sylas’ release was right around the corner.

He was a bit after my own time with League of Legends, but Sylas is a mage who’s able to copy and use the ultimate abilities of other champions. For Digital Sun’s take on this, Mageseeker dives deeper into Sylas’ past. In an intro cutscene for my demo, I saw a short slice of Sylas as he was in the past: his ability to sense magic used to hunt mages throughout the kingdom of Demacia and, after having a change of heart and defending one, becoming