Launch Day

“I’m pretty sure the day we went to PBE was the happiest day of my career,” says Riot MapleNectar. “It was like, we turned on the queue at 1pm. And then someone said we had 1,000 players in-game. And we all started clapping and cheering. It was like we’d launched a missile into space. The four months leading up to that moment... It was just like, ‘F&*$% it. We did it.’”

“When you say, ‘We all started clapping and cheering,” what exactly do you mean?” Meddler asks.

“I mean, like, everyone in our pit and the game modes team,” answers Riot MapleNectar.

“Because that cheer made it all around the office,” Meddler responds. “At least in our area.”

“What? Really? I didn’t know that!” Riot MapleNectar smiles.

“I remember the cheer moment,” Riot Stimhack adds.

“No one wanted to get left out,” laughs Riot Wrekz. “Some people had no idea what was going on, but they were like, ‘Yeahhhhhh!’ And clapping.”

“I just remember being surprised because the PBE normally seems to be massively over-provisioned for what it needs,” Riot Nullarbor shares. “On a normal day the PBE is running at about 10% capacity. But then on TFT launch day it was at 100% with a really, really long queue.”

“When we saw the queue a bunch of us were just sitting around hitting F5 and watching the Twitch viewer count go up,” Meddler laughs. “‘Oh, 20,000! Now it’s 50,000! I wonder how high it’ll go!’ And eventually it culminated in Riot MapleNectar running around and high-fiving everyone. It was kind of adorable.”



And Now?

“I’m just really excited for the future,” shares Riot Wittrock. “The creation and launch were just two of the many steps of—what I hope is—a game for years to come. I’m excited thinking back on everything, but I really think it’s just one of the checkpoints in the history of TFT.”

The team accomplished something that had, really, never been done at Riot: They made something for players from scratch in only a few months. From janky prototype on Summoner’s Rift to full-blown game mode.

“I think, genuinely, it was the coolest to work on a team of incredibly talented and passionate people. Everyone was running in the same direction, and that’s what let us get this done so quickly,” says Riot MapleNectar. “Literally every single person was pivotal to making TFT. There wasn’t a single person we could have done without. And I can only hope to get a similar experience in the future. Because this feels incredibly unique. I think it’s a once in a lifetime thing.”

In just 18 weeks TFT went live to players around the world. Now we’re nearly a year in and on Set 3 (Galaxies!), and the team is still optimistic about what’s to come. So here’s to them, and to you. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to make TFT. And thank you for playing.