Riot Games Confirms LoL Arena Mode Return: Date, Changes, Cameos & More

Riot Games announced the return of the fan favorite game mode that kept the League of Legends player base entertained for well over a month in the summer. The publisher said that players will be returning to the Rings of Wrath for another bout of 2v2 battles in Arena Mode.

In the summer, Riot Games drew inspiration from Teamfight Tactics (TFT) and borrowed some of its features and combined it with the classic elements of League of Legends to create a brand new limited time mode (LTM) called the Arena mode or the 2v2v2v2 mode. It was first rolled out on the live servers on 20th July and was available for play till 28th August, after which it was taken down.

After seeing the excitement around this game mode, Riot Games promised to bring it back after making some changes. And it has kept its promise.

Lead Modes Designer Daniel "Maxw3ll" Emmons said, "Arena was the first new mode League has released in several years. It was also the very first mode that most of the people on the new Modes team (myself included) have shipped."

Riot Games noted that it will continue to work on Arena mode over time and ship updates as per feedback and constructive criticism from the community.

Having said all that, here's everything you need to know about the return of Arena mode in League of Legends at the end of 2023.

Changes Made to Arena Mode in League of Legends

1. Changes to the Queues:

After learning that more players wanted to queue up together in Arena mode, Riot Games has increased the number of people who can queue together.

Groups of 2, 3, and 4 people can now queue together and choose who is on what team. Additionally, a full group of 8 people can now queue together. However, they will have their own private match.

2. Champion Diversity & Augment Changes:

Since not many champions were getting selected in the first iteration of Arena mode, Riot Games has decided to tweak the Augments in the upcoming version of Arena mode.

The changes are as follows:

• Almost 60 new Augments.

• Riot is introducing a limited number for each Augment (two copies each).

• Players will ban champions as normal at the beginning, but will pick champions in two phases.

• First, one player from each team will blind pick a champion. Then, those champions will be revealed, and the second player will get to blind pick a champion, but cannot pick any champion that was picked in the first round.

• Hexgates are making their debut in Arena.

3. Downed State:

Each player, when killed in Arena, will begin spawning a circular area where they died. After some time, their ally can stand in this area to revive them. Notable, each team only gets one revive per round.

4. Challenges:

Riot Games has introduced a few new Challenges that track some Arena-specific stats. All of these challenges already exist for Summoner’s Rift, but their Arena versions are in their very own category under the 'Legacy Challenges' tab.

Cameos in Arena Mode Version 2

Cameos are here to stay in Arena mode, at least for this iteration, and will have new champions as part of this mechanic. Riot Games has added two new Cameo champs from the Winterblessed skin line, and kept the three most enjoyed Cameos from the first release. The Cameos in Arena mode v2 are as follows:

• Sett

• Pyke

• Gwen

• Sylas

• Thresh

Arena Mode v2 Release Date

Arena mode v2 is going to the public beta environment (PBE) on 8th November. Following this, the game mode will be released in LoL Patch 13.23 with the newest iteration and changes. Notably, LoL Patch 13.23 will go live on 21st November.