LoL Dev Update: Arena and Swarm Future Plans

League of Legends has been a staple in the MOBA genre, raking in millions of players for over a decade with no signs of stopping any time soon. Although famous for its 5v5 map, the game has also experimented with different game modes like ARAM which has become a permanent part of the client. 

Along with special events, the developers would add special game modes that would become fan favorites whether you're thinking of URF, Doom Bots, or Star Guardian, with the newest additions being Arena and Swarm. The community was taken away by how fun both of these game modes were, prompting discussion on whether they would become permanent or at least occur more often. 

League of Legends Arena Game Mode

League of Legends' Arena was met with incredible feedback from players, allowing the game modes team at Riot to further experiment and re-introduce it with fresh new mechanics, augments, and items. Despite some drawbacks like the infamous Koi Pond map and Jhin cameo, overall, the community was having a blast trying out different combos and builds to reach first place. 

However, it seems that Riot has decided on making Arena a recurring game mode, as the amount of resources and time needed to maintain the game mode fresh and fun were not suitable should the company decide to try out new avenues of approach. 

Unlike ARAM, Arena doesn’t cleanly inherit gameplay, champion, and item changes from Summoner’s Rift. This means that Arena requires a dedicated team to keep the mode on week to week.

Although this can be sad news for Arena enthusiasts, the dev blog at least promises for the game mode to return with a bang next year by featuring a better progression system and more experimentation and novelty. 

League of Legends Swarm Game Mode

Swarm was met with a wave of hype as this new type of PvE gameplay received a remarkable amount of positive feedback from the players. Not only was it the best-performing PvE mode by far, but also showcased some important factors in the success of future possible game modes. 

Although the devs did not mention Swarm returning anytime soon, the team is looking into integrating some of the principles and lessons learned for future game modes, along with new ways of approaching PvE content. 

We’re really excited about Swarm’s reception as a game mode and what it means for the future of modes. We’re excited to start applying what we’ve learned to upcoming projects. We don’t have anything to share about our next steps with Swarm for the time being, but we are looking into how Swarm will fit into our ecosystem and what we can do to improve the mode for future events. 

Overall, these types of game modes only bring valuable knowledge and experience to the devs, making it much easier on them to create and release either brand-new experiences or further adjust previous game modes to better suit the needs and wants of the players. 

ARAM Changes and Future Rotating Game Modes

Along with information for Swarm and Arena, the devs also hinted at exciting new changes and additions to the beloved ARAM game mode so hold on to your Poros and keep that snowball ready as we are in for a treat later down the year. 

The dev blog also mentions that League of Legends will have alternative ways to enjoy the game, so you can expect Ultimate Spellbook to make a comeback once Split 3 starts. 

Generally speaking, we’d like for players to always have a game mode they can play at any given time in the year. 

It seems that we can expect even more news as Riot Games is planning to release one more update for the end of 2024 so be on the lookout for more information in the near future. If you would like to learn more, you can check out the official blog post, here.