LoL dev teases popular 2v2v2v2 Arena mode has larger queues & custom games on the way

A League of Legends developer has teased that the new 2v2v2v2 Arena game mode will have larger queue sizes and custom lobbies available in the future.

The newest game mode in League of Legends has finally hit the PBE. The 2v2v2v2 mode, or Arena, as Riot has coined it is the developers’ newest foray into alternative game modes. Aside from the classic 5v5 on Summoner’s Rift and the quick and casual All Random All Mid, it’s been quite some time since has experimented with the formula of League, much to the excitement of the player base.

Arena hosts 8 players in 4 teams of 2, who take turns facing off against each other in rounds. Each round lost means the players take damage to their shared health pool, and when dropped to 0 means they’re eliminated. This is a very similar function to the way Riot’s popular auto battler TFT functions. Similarly to TFT, Arena will also host augments that dramatically shift the way champions can be played.

With the more arcadey feel behind the game mode, it seems to be a bit less competitive than League’s premier 5v5. This has players hoping that this new game mode will be playable with friends. Players have requested to be able to queue with more than 1 other player, and have also asked for custom game lobbies to be available. Fortunately, a Rioter has revealed that these features may be coming when Arena is in a more stable state in the future.

Rioter reveals larger queues and custom lobbies will be coming to Arena game mode

“Being able to queue with more than 2 people is absolutely a priority for us for future releases. As a team, we’ve had a lot of discussions about this feature, and we knew from our playtests that getting to play an inhouse with a group of buddies you know is one of the best ways to experience the mode.” the comment from Riot CptCubone states.

Riot is well aware of the potential for the mode, and investigated the cost to create the features, unfortunately, they determined it would divert too many resources away from the release of the mode.

“Our engineers did their homework early, investigating the cost of all the different feature requests we’d need to get Arena functioning. This one was called out early on as a pretty sizeable effort that would have diverted significant amounts of resources from getting the game mode core systems up and running.”

The developer then explained that these were some of the missing features mentioned in the Arena dev blog released earlier this week.

“The dev blog for Arena mentioned how much the team wanted to get this out in time for the summer event to make this moment special for players, and that because of that, it may be missing a feature or two. This, unfortunately, is one of those features. In this case, prioritizing custom lobbies would have been the difference between shipping for Soul Fighter vs shipping a few months down the line.”

There’s no exact date for when these features may arrive in the mode, but with players absolutely adoring the new Arena, here’s hoping it comes around very soon.