League of Legends Officially Releases WASD Alternate Gameplay Control Option

The highly controversial launch of the new alternative control scheme to League of Legends has finally crashed down upon us. Announced a while back, WASD was meant to be a way for players to engage with Riot Games' MOBA without having to learn a hyper-specific control set (of moving with mouse) to come to grips with it.

At the time, it was pitched as a way to ensure that new players could enjoy the experience, as WASD has been the staple of the videogame industry for years. That said, many players looked forward to its launch due to the accessibility options of reducing hand pain whilst playing, and it's gone from notorious to accepted, especially as Riot Games didn't back down from its launch.

In the latest Dev Update launched for League of Legends, and the final one of the year, we got to hear an update on WASD: it's out. Now. This means that players who were looking forward to its integration (or dreading it, in some cases) can now begin trialling it on their main accounts.

There are a few caveats to this global launch, however, as Riot Games continues erring on the side of caution with the controversial scheme. For its launch, WASD will be available in all queues except Ranked and normal Draft. One of the biggest concerns players have had with it is the unbalanced approach between classic and modern controls, and the developer keeps trying to make sure a fair launch hits competitive play.

WASD has changed a fair bit since the last time the team touched on it, too, having been in the PBE for a few months, now. It has incorporated a few new accessibility features and seen improvements on several areas, all meant to make the new launch far better and equitable, usable in high- and low-ELO matches.

Here are some of the changes that Riot Games spoke about:

• Improvements to navigating around Minions and wall sliding.
• New auto attack system meant to impimise DPS output via auto attacks.
• New feature for the Dynamic Locked Camera called "Scout Ahead" that lets you click a key binding to detach temporarily (the opposite of what we have at the moment).
• New accessibility feature to tune the speed of the camera movement.

It's been a pretty big year for League of Legends, and hopefully, WASD will help the experience even more by introducing more entry points for newcomers. It's out now on League of Legends and all of the queues except for Ranked and normal Draft.