• Riot Games has given Project K a name – Riftbound.
• Riftbound is a physical card game set in the League of Legends universe.
• The game will release in China and “other English speaking countries” in 2025.

Last year Riot Games announced it would be releasing a physical trading card game set in its League of Legends universe. The game was simply dubbed Project K until Monday, when Riot gave it a proper name – Riftbound.

The development of Riftbound is lead by Dave Guskin who is the game director and Chengran Chai who acts as executive producer.

The pair appeared in a video announcing the game’s name and an update for players who are eager to get their hands on the game. Guskin in particular notes that the small team working on the game has taken player feedback to heart and various aspects of the game have been refined on the back of that feedback.

“Riftbound is a TCG inspired by the Champions and universe of League of Legends. While some of us on the design team are from the old school days of classic one versus one card games, Riftbound has that and more,” says Guskin.

Chai goes on to explain that Riftbound will allow pairs to compete against each other or for chaos to take hold. It’s an interesting take on the format and if Riot Games can create a TCG that is both fun and interesting, it may just have a winner on its hands. Importantly, Riot has been developing this game with tournament play in mind, a vital aspect of a TCG.

The game will launch with one set of 300 cards dubbed Origins. This collection will include champions and minions and there will be normal and rare cards to collect and trade as you may have come to expect from other TCGs on the market.

The developer has partnered with UBS to make sure its cards can be found in game stores and to assist in organising group play sessions.

The game will launch in China and the vague “other English speaking countries” this year with further availability in 2026. Riot also teased that it’s second set of cards is already done and work on the third has begun.

Physical card games are common but physical card games based on videogame IPs aren’t. In recent memory the only game we can think of that matches this bill is World of Warcraft. Yes, before Hearthstone there was the World of Warcraft TCG. Announced in 2005 and released in 2006, the game was eventually canned in 2013, a year before Hearthstone released.

During its time, the WoW TCG saw the release of 21 sets so it was rather successful.

We’re sure Riot Games is hoping Riftbound is a hit, even a marginal one. We’d be curious to give it a try even with the experience of knowing these games start to eat away at your wallet in order to remain relevant. With that having been said, if you want a Riot card game you can play right now, Legends of Runeterra may scratch that itch.