League of Legends has positioned itself as one of the best MOBA games, but Riot Games also infrequently offers up various other modes that keep players enthralled with the lore and characters. After with the launch of Arena, fans have been asking whether the game mode, Ascension, will ever return to League.
Will Ascension ever return to League? Explained
Although many game modes are added to the League rotation, Ascension is one that, in its previous state, will not be returning. This was confirmed in a 2021 update from Hannah Lee, the modes product lead.
Unfortunately, once the novelty of these modes drops, so does their player base, which is what happened with Ascension. This may be because the key points of these modes are entirely new systems, with the champions acting as nothing more than avatars. So, there was no investment in the mode.
If the Ascension game mode ever returned, it would need a significant overhaul and be very different from what it once was to make up for the lack of emotional connection and investment and the tediousness of the mode that drove players away.
What was the Ascension game mode in League?
The Ascension game mode was a Shurima-themed mode featuring Relics of Shurima that needed to be captured. But, in essence, it was almost like an Overwatch 2 mode for League. Besides capturing the Relics, there were other objectives you had to accomplish, such as killing an enemy champion or becoming an Ascended.
Each objective would earn you various points, and the first team to 200 points would be declared the winner. To be honest, the 200-point system was one of the reasons why I stopped playing this game mode because getting that many points was pretty tedious.
Related: League Arena ranks and ranked tier system, explained
And nothing was worse than being repeatedly stomped on by a snowballing enemy team and waiting until they got all the points to win.
This mode could have been much more enjoyable if the total number of points needed was less, if it was more fast-paced, or if we could utilize champion abilities more, and all this could have been added to a future release.
At the time of writing though, the Riot development team has made it quite clear it has no intentions to bring back the Ascension mode to League.
