League’s Arena mode may become permanent — but there’s a catch

Though the limited-time Arena mode has recieved its fair share of criticism from the League community, its overall reception has been positive. Devs spoke about how they’re considering its potential to be a permanent game mode and what they’d change or add if the mode was popular enough.

Limited-time modes have been a feature of League of Legends for a long time, though the LTM team being moved to work on Teamfight Tactics slowed down the production of modes that kept League of Legends fresh.

With Twisted Treeline long gone and Nexus Blitz being, for all intents and purposes, scrapped, League of Legends players have been hungry for new ways to play and a mode that could keep the game fresh.

This has led to the creation of the Arena mode, a simple yet seemingly popular mode that’s only going to be around for a limited time. Although, if the mode does well enough, League devs will be looking into making the mode permanent and improving upon it.

League’s Arena mode could become permanent if it does well

League of Legends is a very statistic and meta-driven game in terms of the competitive scene. Finding an outlet where players can break out of that mold without giving themselves a much higher chance of losing is a challenge for the devs.

ARAM (All Random All Mid) does this by making the champion picks completely random, taking the idea of building a team composition out of the equation. This mode’s random nature makes it easier for players to take it less seriously and focus on having fun with the hand they’re given.

The Arena mode aimed to find a middle ground, a mode that allows players to have some level of planning going in with enough randomness to shake off there being a hard and fast meta. And, if the mode does well enough, it’s not off the table that it becomes a permanent addition.

Riot’s Brightmoon and Meddler spoke at length about the game mode’s potential, with Meddler specifically talking about how there are going to be balance patches over the course of the mode’s run.

Additionally, the team talked about potential features that could be added upon the mode’s return. Brightmoon cited custom lobbies and being able to queue with more than just one friend as possible additions to the mode.

That said, developers behind haven’t confirmed whether the mode will be coming back. The only thing they’ve talked about in the dev update and accompanying Arena blog is confirm balance updates to the mode while it’s here and speak about things they’d like to add. One of the main concerns they cited was the mode having the potential to fall off if the “novelty” of the mode goes away over time.

It remains to be seen whether the Arena mode will be iterated upon in the future. However, if you’re enjoying the mode, it seems that the best way to make sure it sticks around is to play it.