Before it became one of the most-played games on the planet, League of Legends had a very different name and a much stranger vision. A resurfaced early investor pitch — dug up and shared by a longtime community creator — reveals the game was once titled “Onslaught: War of the Immortals,” complete with a 6v6 format, a bearded version of Sion, and a storyline built around what the deck called “an antichrist of sorts.” It’s a fascinating look at how far a hit can drift from its first draft.
For anyone building a product, the pitch is a reminder that the version people fall in love with is rarely the one you start with. The bones were there in that early document, but almost every recognizable detail changed on the road to launch.
Before Summoner’s Rift, There Was ‘Onslaught’
The pitch predates the polished five-versus-five formula that made the game a global esport. Back then the concept leaned into a bigger, messier team fight — six players a side — and a heavier fantasy narrative that would feel almost unrecognizable to today’s players. The name alone, “War of the Immortals,” signals a studio still reaching for tone before it found the tight, competitive identity that eventually clicked.
That evolution wasn’t an accident. The game grew out of the community-mod era that gave rise to the entire genre, and its creators spent years sanding down ideas until the core loop felt fair, readable, and endlessly replayable. The rough pitch is the “before” photo.
6v6, a Bearded Sion, and an ‘Antichrist’ Plot
The juiciest details are the ones that never survived. Sion — now an undead juggernaut — apparently once sported a beard. The team size ballooned to six per side, which would have completely changed pacing, map design, and balance. And the overarching story reportedly revolved around a dark, quasi-religious villain, a far cry from the loosely connected champion lore fans know today.
None of that made the cut, and the game is almost certainly better for it. Trimming from 6v6 to 5v5 tightened decision-making. Dropping the heavy central plot let each champion carry their own identity. It’s the kind of ruthless editing that separates a shipped hit from a bloated concept — a lesson any founder can appreciate.
What a Rough First Pitch Says About Building a Hit
There’s real encouragement here for creators sitting on an unpolished idea. One of the biggest games in the world started as an awkwardly named, oddly structured pitch that would probably get laughed out of a modern boardroom. The difference between that draft and the finished product was years of iteration, playtesting, and a willingness to cut beloved ideas.
Whether the game is thriving or, as some critics keep asking, showing its age, its origin story reframes the debate. This wasn’t a franchise that arrived fully formed — it was engineered, revision by revision, from something far rougher. For more on where the game stands now, our team has weighed in on whether League of Legends is actually dying.
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From Immortals to Icons
“Onslaught: War of the Immortals” is a name most players will never associate with their thousands of hours on the Rift — and that’s exactly the point. The game that conquered the MOBA genre was built by cutting, reshaping, and second-guessing an early vision until it worked. The bearded Sion didn’t survive, but the discipline that killed him is why the game did.
