League of Legends ' lore is being completely rewritten after developer Riot Games admits it's gotten slightly out of hand.

blog post by the studio's Tommy Gnox explains the company realised a complete rethink was in order as each successive champion that was added further muddied the title's water."In some cases - say, with a champion update - the original concept is mostly sound (or even timelessly awesome!) and all we have to do is bump things up to modern standards," he wrote. "Sometimes, however, we look back at decisions that made perfect sense when we originally made them, but are now at odds with our design values and ultimately limit our ability to continually improve League of Legends. That's unacceptable, and in such situations we seek to aggressively reimagine content in a way that realises its full potential.""After a while, these early choices began to create unexpected problems. Every new champion needed a reason to join and remain in the League, and as their number grew, the net result was that over time the world started to feel, well, small, and eventually less interesting. The institutions we'd designed fostered creative stagnation, limiting the ways that champions, factions and Runeterra itself could grow and change. Furthermore, the very idea of all-powerful Summoners made Champions little more than puppets manipulated by godlike powers. The background we'd created to explain in-game action was ultimately restricting the potential narrative development of the game's defining characters."Story has the potential to affect every element of League of Legends, so the decision to venture into new narrative territory wasn't made quickly or capriciously. The need for change only became apparent over time, and the choice was made only after a great deal of deliberation. Further, we want you to know that this new approach is focused on opening up possibilities and unlocking a wider, more fully-fledged world - the point isn't to tear up older stories that form their own cherished part of League's history."At a very broad level, we've decided to push League's story beyond its original focus on explaining in-game action and forge a new narrative path for Runeterra," he added. "One of the principles we'd love to discuss further is our focus on ensuring that champion identities remain consistent regardless of where you encounter them; for example, Darius should always feel the same regardless of whether he's administering an axe in a story piece, the game, or a cinematic. Exploring champions' backstories and motivations beyond what you see in the game doesn't mean they'll suddenly start feeling like different characters; what it does do is offer a huge spectrum of options for fleshing out personalities and deepening connections."Riot previously revealed Azir, the Emperor of the Sand , as the next Champion coming to the MOBA. For more on League of Legends and other MOBAs, be sure to subscribe to IGN Arena

Luke Karmali is IGN's UK News Editor. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on Twitter