A LoL team deathmatch mode has been announced by Riot Games just now, that it hopes to launch around summer 2023.
And the Nexus Blitz game mode is also returning, though Riot said it’s not sure when just yet.
The announcement was made by developers Riot Brightmoon and Riot Meddler on behalf of the League of Legends team on Twitter, in response to community criticism that Riot isn’t doing enough to support League and that the game isn’t in a great state, following a poorly received cinematic to promote the League of Legends 2023 Season announcement.
How will the LoL team deathmatch mode work?
The upcoming mode will feature four teams of two, as a sort of 2v2 LoL team deathmatch mode (or 2v2v2v2 to be precise).
“The good news is we have a modes team that is staffed up, and ready to execute,” Jeremy ‘Riot Brightmoon’ Lee, Riot’s League of Legends Executive Producer, said in the below video on Twitter around the 3:55 mark.
“We played a prototype for a new game mode a couple of days ago, and it’s really promising, and something we’re hoping to get out to all of you this summer.”
“This is a mode that involves four teams of two who get matched against each other in a series of deathmatch-like rounds, buy items and level up and so on between rounds.”
Riot Meddler
Andrei ‘Riot Meddler’ van Roon, Head of League Studio at Riot Games, also spoke about the LoL team deathmatch mode, saying: “This is a mode that involves four teams of two who get matched against each other in a series of deathmatch-like rounds, buy items and level up and so on between rounds.
“It’s a little janky, it’s a little rough, as a prototype, but we think it’s shown a lot of promise and our current thinking is we’ll share some more details about it, some art etc, probably in March.
“And then we’ll hope to get it out around the middle of the year, so you can play it. Game modes is one of the places where we’ll probably have more changes that we make to the game and ship in the shorter term.”
Riot Meddler added on Reddit: “I’m personally really optimistic the 2v2v2v2 game mode will be a very fun experience. [It’s essentially] four teams of two players, matchmaking against a random other pair each round, buy items and gain levels between rounds. Lose enough rounds and you get eliminated. Still figuring out a lot of the details in terms of how many rounds, map layout etc.”
He also said Nexus Blitz will be coming back to the game.
Riot has now been rebuilding the game modes team after it left to focus on TFT, hence the upcoming LoL team deathmatch mode.
“League used to have a game mode team, a pretty good one, and we ended up using this team as the foundation for the development of, and the ongoing development of Teamfight Tactics (TFT) and this had a cost to League,” Riot Meddler said.
As well as the LoL team deathmatch mode, Riot Brightmoon and Riot Meddler opened up in a candid video talking to League fans about their plans for the future of the game.
Update – Riot reveals more concrete details on LoL team deathmatch mode
In February 2023, Riot shared more info on the upcoming 2v2v2v2 team deathmatch mode, specifically around ‘augments – significant power ups that are intended to create unique builds for champions’ in the mode.
There’s more in the tweet below and in this League dev update post on the team deathmatch mode.
Riot Meddler on the ‘Brink on Infinity’ LoL season cinematic
Meddler said Riot planned to have an epic season start cinematic with champions planned for it, the budget for it and the right team, but ‘failed to deliver’, and that Riot will commit to one of these cinematics for the 2024 season start.
He added on Reddit: “Brink of Infinity isn’t what we were originally building. Once we knew we wouldn’t be able to deliver a cinematic like other season starts we looked at what we could do with limited time, Brink of Infinity was the result. It wasn’t intended to be a replacement or at the same level as a regular cinematic, thinking was it would be better to try something that do nothing.
“In retrospect we should have definitely talked to you all in advance about how things had gone wrong and arguably might still have been better off not shipping Brink of Infinity (was something not up to standard much worse than nothing etc).”
Riot Meddler
“[The previously planned cinematic with champions in] was planned, got scripted, we got partway through development. The reason it didn’t get finished is something I can’t share specifics on, and I’m really sorry about that because I know it’s a frustrating answer. I can say I’m very certain we won’t hit the same issue with a cinematic for next year’s season start.
“To add a bit of tangibility – we saw some speculation that Aatrox would be in the season start cinematic because of the Aatrox ward skin, just like Ornn and the Ornn ward skin last year. That was indeed the plan, Aatrox was one of the featured champions.”
Riot promises better communication and funding for League of Legends
Riot Brightmoon and Riot Meddler mentioned longer-term investments in League of Legends, better and more regular communication with the playerbase, and that the game is receiving its biggest year of funding in 2023.
Brightmoon admitted Riot had ‘made mistakes’ and ‘missed player expectations’ around the LoL season 2023 cinematic, while Meddler said the state of the game right now ‘and for a little while, hasn’t been what it should be’, but stated Worlds and the durability update as positives.
Meddler also cited the lack of new game modes, lack of season start cinematic, and that events have been formulaic.
“League of Legends has historically been a very big priority for Riot, and it very much still is,” Meddler said.
“For us, 2022 was a rebuilding year, we rebuilt some of the League teams, some devs and leadership. The good news is the team is in a much better state now, but the bad news is the state of the game right now reflects where the team was last year.”
The pair asked viewers how they’d like to see the more frequent updates from Riot, whether it’s blog posts, videos or other forms of communications.
What else is Riot working on in 2023 and beyond?
Riot is also working on several other projects, such as its upcoming League of Legends MMO and fighting game, not to mention different teams focused on different live games, like TFT, Legends of Runeterra, Wild Rift and Valorant.
Riot also has outsourced League of Legends-related games in the works like Song of Nunu and Conv/rgence, with previously released titles including the Ruined King turn-based RPG and musical side-scroller Hextech Mayhem.
That’s not to mention Riot’s entertainment non-gaming operations, such as those producing its music like K/DA and Pentakill, and animations like Arcane, which launched last year on Netflix to much acclaim.
Related article: Riot has a ‘player-first’ strategy, outlined in more detail in this five-year plan from the Riot Games CEO last year.
Related posts:
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
