- A partnership announced in June between Riot Games and Microsoft has finally borne fruit.
- Linking your Xbox account to your Riot Games account will unlock rewards and Game Pass subscribers get great benefits.
- You will still seemingly be launching and installing games via the Riot Client.
Microsoft seemingly likes to make large announcements at the end or beginning of the year.
Case in point, the firm’s announcement of the yet-to-be-closed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Now, Microsoft has announced it’s adding Riot Games’ erm, games, to its Xbox app on PC, sort of.
We say sort of because from what we can tell, none of the games are actually launching from the Xbox app. When trying to install one of the games from the Riot Games stable, you are prompted to download the Riot Client.
The games available include Valorant, League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics, Legends of Runeterra and League of Legends: Wild Rift. However, when you go to install these titles you are redirected to the Riot Client. Essentially, you’re just linking your Riot account with your Xbox account through “installing” a game.
The benefit of jumping through these hoops is that you can unlock some free rewards. In addition, Game Pass subscribers unlock a suite of benefits for all of the games listed above.
The rewards for players who link their Xbox and Riot accounts before 1st January include:
- Valorant – Pocket Sage Buddy
- League of Legends – Masterwork Chest and Key
- Teamfight Tactics – Little Legend Rare Egg
- Wild Rift – Random Emote Chest
- Legends of Runeterra – Prismatic Chest
Game Pass subscribers will also unlock a host of benefits for these games so long as their subscription remains active.
For Valorant, you can expect all current agents, access to every new agent as they are released and a 20 percent Match XP Boost given to Battle Pass, Event Pass, and active Agent Contract progress.
For League of Legends, Game Pass subscribers will receive all 160+ champions, new champions as they are released and a 20 percent XP boost.
Teamfight Tactics players will receive a 1-Star Rare Little Legend Tacticians as well as 4 Arena skins and one Arena Skin on a monthly rotation.
Finally, League of Legends: Wild Rift players will receive all 80 champions, access to new champions as they are released and a 20 percent XP boost. These benefits only become available in January 2023.
Look, we understand you need to jump through some hoops here but if you have Game Pass and play one of Riot’s titles, this isn’t a bad deal. In fact, according to CNET, taking advantage of this saves you $1 000 on League of Legends champions
If that wasn’t enough, if you’ve never used PC Game Pass, your first month will cost just R15.90.
