Listen to the audio version of this article (generated by AI).
Riot Games has revealed a new seasonal model for League of Legends in 2025, with the first of three seasons focusing on Noxus, one of the regions of the in-game world of Runeterra.
Each season will last eight patches (or 16 weeks) and focus on a unique theme, following specific champions across different regions within Runeterra, which will connect to an overarching narrative that spans the year.
“In tandem with player feedback, this structure will shape most new content in 2025, such as gameplay updates, modes, mini-games, and champions, by aligning them with the theme of each season,” Riot said. “Additionally, each season will feature skins that celebrate the theme, in addition to the release of the wide variety of skinlines unrelated to the season.”
Season One will begin in Noxus, with players getting a new cinematic spotlighting Noxus and Noxian champions to kick off Season One in January.
New game mechanics, items, and runes will be introduced too.
Noxian-themed boot upgrades will become available through a new mechanic called Feats of Strength. Access to these enhanced boots will be granted to the first team to claim two of the following three objectives: first blood, first tower, and first three epic jungle monsters. The team that does so will gain slightly enhanced stats on their tier two boots and unlock a powerful Noxus-themed final upgrade for their boots.
Small-scope adjustments will be made to items designed for tanks and a new item, Bloodletter’s Curse, will be added, which reduces the target’s magic resistance from repeated ability hits.
New minor runes will be added to rebalance some of the vision-related options in the Domination tree: Deep Ward, Sixth Sense, and Grisly Memento. The update also welcomes Axiom Arcanist, a new addition to the Sorcery tree that makes ultimate abilities more powerful.
Nexus turrets will now respawn after a set time after they’re destroyed, giving teams on the brink of defeat a better chance at a comeback.
And the Summoner Spell Teleport will no longer instantly blink the champion after its channel, but instead, the champion will visually travel across the map. Unleashed Teleport will cause the champion to travel at a faster rate while teleporting.
New epic jungler monster ‘Atakhan, Bringer of Ruin’ arrives in LoL in 2025
Season One will also introduce Atakhan, Bringer of Ruin, a new epic jungle monster. Atakhan will spawn once per game at the 20-minute mark on either the top or bottom side of the map depending on which has seen the most champion damage and kills by the 14-minute mark. To signal where Atakhan will appear, his arena will spawn, permanently altering the map with two new walls.
Atakhan’s dark influence will also cause Blood Roses to grow periodically in the areas where champions have been killed. Each team gains a small amount of XP and a permanently stacking Adaptive Force buff for every Blood Rose collected.
Atakhan has two distinct forms: Ruinous and Voracious. Higher action games spawn Ruinous Atakhan, who grants Bloody Petals to the team who defeats him and spawns a grove of Blood Roses in the area for anyone to collect. Taking down Ruinous Atakhan also grants increased effects from all Epic monster rewards. Voracious Atakhan spawns in lower action games and imparts a one-time Rebirth buff, which resurrects its bearers in base upon taking fatal damage, to the team that takes him down.
As a result of Atakhan’s addition to Summoner’s Rift, the spawn times of Rift Herald and Baron Nashor will be moved to the 16-minute mark and the 25-minute mark, respectively.
Matthew Leung-Harrison aka Riot Phroxzon, lead gameplay designer at Riot Games, told Lucas Bauth of StellaE Gaming in a press briefing: “Similar to every set of changes we do, we know there’s going to be some sort fallout for pro play. Typically good fallout in the sense that mixing things up for pro players both makes the game more exciting and just adds more uncertainty.
“If pros get too ingrained in their practice environment, they optimise all the “fun” out of the game, which is not ideal!
“We’re definitely looking forward to the mixups that [the new jungle monster] adds, and some of the intentions behind adding the petals is sometimes there’s not that much to fight over.”
Riot Phroxzon
“So, similar to having ward battles or pushing for sidelines, territory control and being aggressive and taking those postures will be rewarded a lot more.
“It’ll result in some snowballing, but we also have some mitigation for snowballing, so overall we hope it’ll create a lot more action in the pro scene, and we have alternative methods of regulating snowball.”
New Swiftplay game mode added to League of Legends
A new game mode, Swiftplay, will be introduced in select regions in January as a potential replacement for Quickplay, Riot said.
“Swiftplay is designed to offer a lower-stakes experience compared to Summoner’s Rift while providing more strategic elements than ARAM. Swiftplay will retain core elements of League of Legends, such as farming, snowballing, and teamfighting for objectives, but with adjustments to ensure a competitive experience for all players, including ramping gold and XP for all players as the game progresses.”
Battle Pass & Rewards changes
League of Legends is introducing changes to the rewards system ‘to better align with the seasonal experience’. Each season will feature an active Battle Pass with both a free and paid track, priced similarly to the Event Pass currently available on live servers. Pass rewards will be obtained directly through the tracks, eliminating the need for Event Tokens and the Event Shop.
Each season will offer two Battle Passes themed to that season’s content, reducing the variety of unrelated rewards and focusing more on game-relevant items. The annual number of passes will remain at six, with the duration of each pass being eight weeks, rather than the previous four weeks. Additionally, most rewards that were previously scattered across various systems will now be consolidated within the free track of the Battle Pass. Progress across systems like Honor and Champion Mastery will also contribute directly to the pass. In total, players will have the opportunity to earn 12 skins per year with the free pass, with half of these skins themed to the season.
The loot and crafting system is also being streamlined. Orbs will continue to be available, but similar items, like Masterwork Chests, will be phased out ‘to reduce redundancy and provide a clearer rewards structure’.
Ranked Resets
The ranked system, including both visible rank and MMR, will return to a single large reset at the beginning of each year in January, with no additional ranked resets throughout the year.
The tuning for the January reset—including the size of the reset, the average number of games needed to climb, and related elements—will follow similar patterns to those used in 2022 and earlier.
Players will have the opportunity to earn three Victorious skins over the year, with one available per season. To unlock each season’s skin, players must win 15 Ranked games during that season.
Multiplayer Practice Tool
In response to player feedback, multiplayer functionality within the Practice Tool will be tested on PBE in the near future, which will allow players to practice with one another in a closed setting. This feature is being considered for the launch of Season One in January and the team will provide an update if the target launch date changes.
Viktor VGU
During the first season of Arcane, Caitlyn received a visual update to better align her League of Legends depiction to how she was shown in Arcane. Now, following the release of the second season of Arcane, a Visual and Gameplay Update (VGU) will be released for Viktor, which will arrive on PBE tomorrow.
“The update will feature new art and an updated backstory for Viktor, better aligning him to the Viktor fans were shown in Arcane, but largely retain his core gameplay apart from a slight functional and thematic change to his ultimate, which will now get larger with every kill until the end of the ability’s duration,” Riot said.
All of Viktor’s skins will be updated. With these changes, Prototype Viktor will increase in price from 520 to 750 RP. Players will have the opportunity to pick up this skin at its cheaper price before Viktor’s VGU is released.
Finally, here’s a video summarising the changes for the League of Legends 2025 Season One:
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.
