League of Legends carves Europe in half

The European territories of free-to-play competitive online game League of Legends are to be split in two.

Developer Riot Games will create two new "platforms" called EU West and EU Nordic & East, wrote the studio on its website.

If you're a European you'll belong to one of those in the coming weeks. But not both.

EU West will contain Ireland, the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy.

EU Nordic & East will contain Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine, Moldova, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania and Greece.

Russia is absent.

Developer Riot Games decided on the plan to "drastically reduce the amount of service impacting issues". "Lengthy" Log-in queues should disappear, as should reliance on overflow servers housed in New York. The service should be more stable as a result.

The only problem is that pan-European friendship groups are being broken up. If you're in that position, however, Riot Games will offer one free transfer to another cluster of territories.

"It’s been quite a journey, summoners of Europe, and we’re excited to be able to bring you a service upgrade that should bring about a lasting resolution to your concerns! Thanks for your patience, and thank you for playing League of Legends."