Riot Games is rolling out WASD controls to ranked matches in League of Legends in patch 26.9, bringing the alternate movement scheme out of testing and into live competitive play later this month. The update follows a push Riot first announced last August, when it said it wanted to see whether the new controls could work without making the game stronger for players who use them.
The company said there is still a small gap in win rates between the two control schemes, with point-and-click holding a slight edge for now. Riot expects that gap to narrow as players get more comfortable with WASD, and it said it will keep watching the numbers after the rollout. That makes the move a balancing act, not just a quality-of-life update, because the studio has spent months trying to make sure the new option does not become a hidden advantage in league of legends ranked play.
The broader update goes beyond movement. League will also get custom inputs for moving the mouse cursor and new flexibility for keybinds, giving players more ways to tailor the controls to how they play. Those additions land alongside the WASD rollout and fit Riot’s long-running effort to make the game easier to approach without changing its competitive core.
Riot was explicit about the boundary it would not cross: it is not adding official support for controllers or gamepads. Players will be able to use WASD controls with a joystick, but the company is stopping short of turning League into a full console-style experience. That leaves the patch with a clear message for players who have been waiting since last August: Riot is willing to change how the game is controlled, but only as long as the balance of league of legends stays intact.
