Riot Games has been trying to win over new players for some time now, and to do so, they’ve been modernizing their game. On August 11, 2025, Riot Games
officially announced in their dev blog the arrival of
WASD controls in their game. After numerous testing and exploration phases,
WASD is now available in Normal Draft as announced by Lead Technical Game Producer Darcy Ludington on X on January 9.
This new way of playing had to go through several lengthy stages before reaching this point. Initially met
with concern from veteran players, especially because kiting as an AD carry became much easier, Riot Games established a careful rollout roadmap. First tested on the PBE on August 27, it
was added to the live servers on December 4 across all queues except Ranked and Normal Draft.
Now, as of this Friday, January 9, it has officially arrived in Normal Draft. It has never been confirmed WASD would make an appearance to the ranked mode, as Riot Games stated they would really need to be 100% sure the feature is balanced with the traditional methods of playing.
What is WASD?
On a standard keyboard, W, A, S, and D sit in a neat square under your left hand. They act as directional keys, mimicking the function of arrows but with more comfort and flexibility. In most games, that means an intuitive directional control system; an easy conversion from console games:
- W – Move forward
- A – Strafe left
- S – Move backward
- D – Strafe right
With this setup, the player's fingers rest naturally over adjacent keys, usually allowing them to easily reach abilities, attack buttons, jump, crouch, and more. This is why WASD became the default across genres like shooters, MMOs, and action-RPGs.
