Riot Games is officially introducing WASD movement controls to ranked play in 'League of Legends' (LoL).

On the 15th, the Riot Games WASD development team announced via a developer blog that the WASD control scheme, which has undergone months of testing, will be applied to ranked games alongside Patch 26.9 and the start of the new season. With this update, WASD controls will be integrated into the live 'Summoner's Rift' feature set and will receive ongoing maintenance.

The development team cited 'fairness compared to the existing point-and-click method' as the core criterion for its introduction to ranked play. Analysis showed that while the win rate for WASD controls was slightly lower than the traditional method, the difference was not statistically significant.

Notably, blind tests revealed that players were almost unable to distinguish which control method their opponents were using. Riot Games expects the gap between the two control schemes to narrow further as players become more proficient.

Technical adjustments were also made to ensure fairness in ranked play. Unlike the existing method, which automatically generates a path to a clicked point, WASD allows for immediate directional input; the team improved terrain collision logic to account for this. Parameters were adjusted to allow champions to slide smoothly along walls, and an 'automatic pathing system' was implemented to prevent movement from stopping when a champion gets stuck on a wall outside the camera's view.

We also optimized the structure for basic attacks that follow skill usage. To reduce the jarring feeling caused by basic attacks being canceled during input, we have reset the auto-attack activation settings for each champion. For example, auto-attack is now disabled for Tristana’s 'Explosive Charge,' while it remains enabled for Garen’s 'Decisive Strike.'

This update includes a wide range of customization features to suit individual player preferences. Starting with Patch 26.8 on the 16th, players can save skill keybindings and instant-cast settings individually for each champion. Furthermore, players can rotate input directions to reduce fatigue—for instance, mapping the 'W' key to move toward the top-right corner to align with the layout of Summoner's Rift. Additionally, the left mouse button can be freely assigned, and all keys except for Delete and ESC can be used as hotkeys.

A Riot Games representative stated, "We will continue to manage the WASD control scheme to ensure it becomes a practical system that allows players to enjoy League of Legends more comfortably."

Further details on the development process and the update can be found on the official Riot Games developer blog.