The Lore of Riven by Rival: “With the release of Arcane, there is a real appetite for the lore side”

League of Legends has been a game for 15 years and has a community full of talented people, including Rival. "The Lore of Riven" is a movie that tells us Riven's life story through her reconciliation with her past and traumas. Esports.gg talked with Rival about the whole process of making this video which is already out on YouTube.

"She is a Noxian soldier and the video follows her through the process of learning who she is and also having her ideals broken and the perception of where she came from. Everything was shattered," tells us Rival, an Australian League of Legends content creator and the mastermind behind this video.

Being a Riven main himself and the number one Riven of this server last season, The Lore of Riven is a "tribute piece for her." Rival has played Riven for about ten years and making this piece for her now that his work is about creating League of Legends content, was important for him.

"As I played less of the game and started to make more content, my thought was to make a tribute piece towards her. I wanted to show my respect for her as a champion and Riot as well while doing something that the fans would enjoy," he said.

Riven was launched in 2011 alongside other known champions such as Fizz, Graves, Leona, Rumble, Vayne, Lee Sin, Caitlyn, and many more. Viktor and Skarner, who received a VGU recently, were also launched that year.

Riot Games expressed its desire to rework many of the older champions which can include Riven in the next years.

"Following Arcane, the next storyline will be very Noxian-based and Riven is a Noxian-based champion so it was the right time to release it," Rival said. The Lore of Riven took almost a year to be completed. It started at the end of March last year.

The project became almost complete in November between the script writing and direction and the Rover Studio started doing the art pieces. When all the art panels were completed, the edition process began. "I and my editor worked 12 hours a day," Rival told us. Sometimes, the discussions were all about small details that would make a difference.

The Lore of Riven becomes a complete piece after more than 4,500 layers and countless details. Riot Games Pu Liu, Game Director for League of Legends, already reacted on X: "This is really dope!"

In the video, other champions make small appearances such as Irelia and LeBlanc. One of the most captivating parts was watching some of Yasuo's backstory. Meeting and fighting Riven with several details and sound effects is amazing.

The storyline leads you to an immersive experience and you can't feel that the video has more than 20 minutes. Rival shared some of the initial sketches of the brother's fight on X. Check out the initial versus the final result of his confrontation with his brother, Yone.

"We wanted to make sure that these sound effects and the music itself, they kinda helped convey emotions or connect you more to the scene in a way that the art alone can't do." At the end of The Lore of Riven, Rival takes some minutes to thank the Rover Studio and his editor Cloud. With more than 147k views on YouTube, the content creator announced his next project: Kindred.

After the amazing feedback from the community, Rival couldn't finish with The Lore of Riven. On X, Rival shared a drawing of Kindred. "The goal is to explain how Kindred becomes Kindred as we know," the content creator clarifies.

"I’m more passionate about this type of content and the crazy support has inspired me to continue," he wrote on X. "Today, the script and first sketch for Book 2: The Reaper of Runeterra was completed."

"The feedback on the video itself is mindblowing. It's honestly the reason why we want to continue. I can see that, especially with the release of Arcane, that is a real appetite for the lore side."League of Legends has a universe full of regions and background stories for 169 champions, giving Rival plenty of work to do.

"I also had feedback from content creators like Dumbs. It's amazing to hear him say this is the best piece of content coming from any League content creator this year," he laughs. "It's January, comments like that are incredible."

The next step is to make this series more dynamic. With movies, smaller explainers, and curiosity videos, Rival aims for a good 2025 for League of Legends content.

We are very excited to see how this project goes. Seeing so many talented people taking their time to show appreciation for their favorite game, it's truly amazing. The Lore of Riven by Rival is out so don't forget to see and leave some feedback.

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