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League of Legends is finally adding a LoL Streamer Mode for better anonymity, in patch 2025.S1.3 (aka LoL patch 15.3).
The new mode will replace account names with the champion name from the loading screen, all the way through to the end of the game, from the view of the player that has this enabled.
“This addition is intended to help reduce incidents of things like Stream Sniping, or other forms of streamer harassment or disruption,” Riot Games said in today’s patch notes.
To enable LoL Streamer Mode, head to Settings, Interface, Health and Resource Bars in the game client and tick the box.
This will go live in patch 25.S1.3, which drops on Wednesday February 5th 2025.
Swiftplay changes and Sudden Death in LoL patch 2025.S1.3
Elsewhere in the patch, Swiftplay is also getting some changes including Sudden Death (a feature already in Clash).
In Sudden Death, all turrets begin to lose 35% of their current Armor/Magic Resist every minute, from the 25-minute mark.
At 27 minutes, the “3 minutes until Sudden Death!” announcement will take place, and then at 30 minutes every targetable structure will lose 3.3% of its max HP every two seconds, and the “SuddenDeath has started!” announcement will happen. Without player interaction, at 36 minutes the game will end via the Nexus burning down.
Swiftplay is also seeing new minion scaling, from every 90 seconds to every 60 seconds.
Riot said: “While 90% of games are over by 33 minutes, we don’t want anyone to be stuck in game longer than 35 minutes, and even the average game time of 24:45 could stand to go down some. Second, we’ve heard the feedback that there’s simply too much to do at all points in time, and you’d rather be fighting each other than epic monsters.
“On the game ending front, we’ve buffed minion scaling to more closely match how quickly champions earn gold and experience. This way their health pools should weather champion wave clear a bit better and their sharper blades should cut down structures a bit faster.”
MacOS OpenGL to Metal Transition and DirectXchanges
In a couple of patches time, Riot said it will be upgrading macOS users from an OpenGL graphics technology to Metal graphics.
This will roll out gradually with the ability to revert back to OpenGL for a period of time until OpenGL is removed. If you’re still using OpenGL, the client will automatically use Metal when Riot remove the support, so no action is required from you. H owever, if you were running OpenGL due to your hardware not being compatible with Metal graphics, you will need to upgrade your hardware so that you can continue playing after OpenGL support is removed.
Riot is also going to be upgrading how it uses DirectX 11 for Windows users. If your graphics card supports DirectX 11 feature level 11_0, your client will update automatically. However, if your graphics card only supports up to DirectX 11 feature level 10_0, you will need to update your hardware so that you can continue playing after this upgrade.
“To maintain the stability and performance of our games, we sometimes need to deprecate support for older hardware or software that isn’t widely used by players anymore. These kinds of changes typically only impact a small number of players, but we wanted to give an ample heads up in case you’re impacted by these changes,” Riot said.
Riot has also made other systems changes in this patch, including the baseline attack speed cap rising from 2.5 to 3.0. You can read the full patch 25.S1.3 notes on the League of Legends website
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.
