The League of Legends 2025 season will hit the Rift with the 25.S1.1 patch in early January.
Yes, Riot Games decided to review their patch naming system so that it corresponds to the current year, and no longer to the number of years since the creation of the game – surely for the sake of readability for beginners.
The big news for 2025 is the introduction of a sort of narrative arc implemented in the game, to better align with Riot Games’ desire to exploit the lore and transcribe it on the Rift. There will therefore be three thematic seasons from next year, around three different regions of Runeterra (LoL’s World) which will each be composed of two acts.
In each of these seasons, the game modes offered, the gameplay updates, the appearance of the Rift as well as the champions that will be released will all be linked to the concerned region. To kick things off, Noxus will be highlighted in the first part of 2025. This also means that the famous season launch cinematic, which will take over from “Still Here”, will be centered on the Noxii Empire and the champions who come from it.
For once, Riot Games does not intend to carry out a complete overhaul of the game’s items for the new year. No, this time, some tank stuff will be slightly modified and only one new item will appear: Bloodletter’s Curse.
This will also be an opportunity to introduce a new feature, which will replace the additional golds generated so far by the First Blood or the First Turret. Feats of Strength will be a new reason to fight for an early lead. The one team that will first get two of either the first three epic monsters of the jungle (Dragons, Herald, or 3 Void Grubs), the first kill, or the first turret of the game will be granted upgraded boots. Those will first give a small upgrade before being enabled for a third upgrade in the late game which will be more interesting. No worries for the Cassiopeia mains, it got confirmed that her passive will get increased instead – if her team gets the two Feats of Strength first.
Like Caitlyn in season 1 of Arcane, Viktor will receive an updated visual to mark the end of season 2 and better align his in-game character with his look from the show. Just like the Sheriff of Piltover in 2021, all of his skins will also receive a graphical overhaul. But that’s not it, since to underline his disproportionate power, Viktor will also receive a small update to his ultimate. The circle will become wider and wider depending on the number of kills it has caused since it was triggered. It’s not much, but it’ll make a difference.
To give more come-back possibilities in the late game, the last two turrets that guard the Nexus will now respawn after a set time once they’re destroyed. New runes will also appear in the Domination arc. Last and foremost the introduction of a lore mystery as a new epic monster of the jungle: Atakhan, Bringer of Ruin. The Baron Nashor will now be delayed to spawn first at 25 min, because this new objective will be taking its place after 20 minutes into the game. The demon will either spawn on the botside or the topside based on whichever has seen the most champion damage and kills by 14 min.
This new mob is here to stay – as some Rioters announced he should be staying in the game even after the Noxus thematic season – and will only spawn once in every game, in either his Ruinous or Voracious form. The Ruinous will spawn in bloodier games, with a lot of kills and damages while the Voracious will spawn in softer games with less action, which explains why he is so hungry… Under his first form, Atakhan grants Blood petals to the teams that kill him, as well as a grove of Blood Roses that can be collected by anyone. When he is under his hungrier form, killing him grants your entire team a version of Guardian Angel that whisks the dying champ back to safety in base which gives them a (functionally) shorter death timer and does not give over full kill gold/XP to the enemy, according to @RiotPhroxzon.
Another feature will be introduced in the next season, as a consequence of Atakhan’s dark influence: the Blood Roses. Those will spawn periodically in the areas where champions have been killed. This means that the bloodier the game is, the more roses you will find on the map. Every time someone from your team hits one of these roses, you and all your teammates will be granted a small experience and power (which I think will most likely be adaptive force) boost.
Obviously, a lot more is yet to come while the new season approaches, including the new LTA region, and no doubt Riot Games will adjust everything by looking over players’ feedback from the PBE before these new features get on the live patch. For the esports part, all those changes should influence the meta, especially in the early game. For example, LCK is known for playing very slow-paced and controlled games with the least fighting possible in the early stages, Atakhan and new boots upgrades might push the Korean teams to create more plays and face the laning phase with more aggression.
Speaking of the laning phase, although there is no news about ending the lane swaps issue (or maybe Atakhan is?) that endlessly occurred during Worlds, I genuinely feel that this isn’t good publicity for Riot Games – because this is far from how the game is played by casual players – and they should eventually address the matter before kicking off 2025. Teams will also have a new tool that they demanded for years now: a multiplayer practice tool.
While Riot claimed that they are still reticent about the idea – since they want players to get better at the game by playing it and not only by practicing for hours with a tool – teams will, for example, now have a new way of optimising every possible patterns, matchups, river control, and setups around objectives at every timing of the game which should make the game much more competitive, especially for the teams that will well and quickly adapt to this new tool and new way of practicing.
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