Look Sports Media – Riot Games is set to shake up the League of Legends landscape in 2026 with a sweeping range of changes slated for Season One. A recent Dev Update unveils a return to the three-split season format, kicking off with a Demacia-themed chapter, alongside significant gameplay adjustments aimed at invigorating the core LoL experience.
The upcoming season promises faster-paced starts, innovative role-specific quests, and alterations to epic monsters, all designed to refresh the strategic depth of Summoner’s Rift.
Demacia Ascends to Summoner’s Rift
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The return of themed ranked seasons will begin with Demacia, influencing both LoL’s narrative and the visual aesthetics of Summoner’s Rift. This means players can expect Demacian champions to take center stage in the year’s opening cinematic, accompanied by the release of new skins styled with Demacian petricite.
Furthermore, Riot has hinted at the imminent unveiling of Shyvana’s highly anticipated Visual Game Update (VGU), a moment eagerly awaited by the LoL community.
While Summoner’s Rift will undergo a visual refresh, the changes will be more subtle compared to the 2025 updates, focusing on map accents and structural details.
Gameplay Overhaul: Farewell Atakhan, Hello Faelights
Riot is rolling back some of the previous year’s changes, most notably removing the Atakhan epic monster, acknowledging that "objective fatigue" has become a concern. The blood roses and petals will also be removed. With Atakhan gone, Baron will return to spawning at the 20-minute mark.
To balance the scales, neutral objectives like Baron and Dragon will be made more resilient, providing teams trailing in gold with increased opportunities for contestation.
Minion and jungle camp spawn times will be accelerated by 35 seconds to reduce downtime, encouraging early invades that demand swift and decisive action.
Introducing "Faelights," a new feature designed to promote warding, will illuminate areas around the map, amplifying the vision range of wards placed within them. These rings will be available from the start of the game, with additional rings appearing as elemental rift changes take effect.
Turret Tactics Evolved
Riot aims to diversify viable strategies beyond team fighting by implementing significant turret changes. The "Feats of Strength" mechanic is being removed, with gold redistributed to First Blood and First Turret rewards.
A new mechanic, "Crystalline Overgrowth," will function as a universal demolish effect on turrets. These crystals will accumulate over time, with longer build-up leading to increased damage, assisting low-DPS and behind characters in pushing lanes.
Turret platings will now be permanently affixed to outer turrets and extended to inner and inhibitor turrets, rewarding teams for aggressive pushing. Riot emphasizes that this change doesn’t introduce more gold into the game but redistributes existing gold from turret kills across the plates.
Late-game minion respawn rates will increase, homeguards will grant faster movement speed towards the most pushed lane, and respawning Nexus towers will only return with partial health.
Role Quests: Game-Breaking Upgrades Await
Perhaps the most transformative change is the introduction of role-specific quests for top, mid, and bot lanes, similar to the existing jungle pet and support item quests.
Players will progress through these quests by contributing to objectives, farming, engaging in fights, and taking down turrets within their assigned lane. Completing these quests in the designated lane will significantly accelerate progress, discouraging anti-fun lane swaps.
Riot identifies top and bot lane carries as the currently weakest roles, leading to disproportionately larger quest rewards for these positions.
Bot laners will receive a substantial gold boost, increased gold generation for the remainder of the match, and a game-altering seventh item slot to dominate the late game.
Top laners will gain an increased level cap, boosted experience gain from all sources, and access to a free Teleport summoner spell (or an upgraded version if already selected).
Mid lane quests will grant players free tier 3 boots and a faster recall, enabling them to roam and impact the map more effectively.
Jungle and support quests are also receiving updates.
Early game jungle clears will be slowed down to give lanes more time to play out uninterrupted. However, monsters will gain additional resistances, and Smite’s damage will be buffed to make stealing camps more challenging. Upon quest completion, junglers will receive bonus gold on large camp kills and increased movement speed within the jungle.
Supports will gain a new item slot exclusively for control wards, discounts on control wards, and increased gold generation over time.
Ranked Revamp: Fairer Matches and Autofill Adjustments
Ranked mode is being updated to reduce queue times and address mismatched games. A visual indicator will now display when a player’s rank is lower than their MMR, signaling that they are rapidly climbing.
Autofill is undergoing significant changes to improve fairness. The system will now prioritize matching autofilled players against opponents with an autofilled player in the same role. If this is not possible, it will ensure that both teams have the same number of autofilled players.
A new system called "Aegis of Valor" will reward autofilled players. Earning a mastery score of C or greater as an autofilled player will prevent LP loss in a lost game and grant double LP for a win. Players who frequently play less popular roles will also occasionally receive these rewards.
Riot is also addressing dodging in lobbies. Hovered champions can no longer be banned by teammates, and players cannot avoid being autofilled. Dodging a game while assigned as autofill will carry the autofill role into the next lobby. In Master rank and higher, dodging will now count as a full loss.
Duo Ranked Queue is also returning for high ranks in most regions.
Animations and picks and bans times are also being reduced to save players over a minute during every lobby.
WASD Controls: A League of Legends Paradigm Shift
In a potentially game-changing move, WASD controls are being added to League of Legends this week.
This controversial update, previously tested on the PBE, will be implemented on Wednesday, December 3rd, as part of Patch 25.24.
The goal is to make the game more accessible to new players, as clicking to move is considered an outdated system by some.
However, this is a huge change for the game as WASD particularly makes ADC much easier to play as it drastically simplifies kiting.
Consequently, Riot is adding the feature to the game slowly. For starters, it won’t be usable in normal or ranked queues.
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