Players, get your training arc going, because Arena is coming back in less than a month, bigger and better than before. Fight double the opponents as before with meaner items of a level never seen before in the Arena, and face your tournament arc while the best League of Legends players of the world go through their own.
In a new Dev Update video, Jeremy “Riot Brightmoon” Lee and Andrei “Meddler” van Roon shared several updates coming to the Arena game mode. The League team highlighted the overall success of Arena’s recent run last December despite seeing a decline in play hours over time, prompting their focus on enhancing variety to sustain interest in the game mode.
Originally introduced during last summer’s event, Soul Fighter, Arena will enter its third iteration this upcoming May. The mode, previously accommodating eight players in pairs of two, will now feature an eight-pair format, a shift aiming to provide a “slightly more in-depth game mode.”
With lobbies accommodating 16 players per game, this new iteration of Arena also brings a new class of items to the battle strategy: Prismatic. Similar to what Teamfight Tactics players are accustomed to, Prismatic items will “completely alter” how Arena plays, according to Riot Games. Additionally, players will have the opportunity to take calculated risks by purchasing items from the Anvil at reduced prices.
Earlier in the year, Riot had announced Arena’s return with several improvements, including an increase in the number of teams from four to eight. The upcoming iteration will also feature new augments, maps, and UI changes aimed at enhancing the overall gameplay experience.
Arena is scheduled to make its comeback on the League client on May 1st, just in time for the first international event of the season, the Mid-Season Invitational, to kick off.
