It’s safe to say that League of Legends has had a rough start to the year. While Riot’s MOBA is infamous for having a community that can be hard to please, it hasn’t seen levels of dissatisfaction this high for a long time. The reason? Well, there are a fair few, but the main one is LoL’s gradual move towards more expensive or gacha-style cosmetics while removing or changing popular progression and reward systems – namely, Hextech Chests. These were booted out of LoL at the start of 2025, but with community sentiment souring, Riot has done a u-turn. Hextech Chests are returning next week as part of the Act 2 update, and to further make peace with players, the unlock costs for new champions will be halved.
In a new developer diary, Andrei ‘Meddler’ van Roon and Paul ‘Pabro’ Bellezza give a frank assessment of how things have been going for League of Legends lately. “We know some of you are frustrated, even questioning if Riot is still the company you’ve always known,” Pabro says. “And we get it. We aspire to put players first, and when our decisions don’t land the way we intended, it can damage your trust. Recently, we’ve made a number of changes that didn’t hit the mark for everyone. We’ve been listening to your feedback, and it’s clear there are areas where we need to adjust.”
So, what’s changing? Well, the big one is the return of Hextech Chests, which will give players more free ways to earn cosmetic items in the MOBA. They won’t be returning exactly how you remember them though. Rather than being available through champion mastery, you’ll now be able to earn up to ten free Chests every Act. An Act lasts two months, just as a reminder. Eight of these chests will be found in the free track of the battle pass, replacing the free skin, while the other two can be earned through positive behavior via the Honor system. “We want to ensure [Chests] are accessible regardless of different playstyles,” Meddler says in justification for putting them into the battle pass and Honor system.
Riot has also stated that the content of Hextech Chests and drop rates will be the same as they were when they were ditched at the start of the year. For a refresher on what you get and drop rates, head to the dev blog here.
In more exciting news, Riot is slashing the cost of acquiring new champions in League of Legends. “We’re going to be lowering the Blue Essence cost of all champions by 50% as of the next patch,” Meddler confirms. The lack of Blue Essence earnable through the new battle pass system has been a major pain point, and new players have long struggled to build out their champion roster and get the characters they want, so this is a welcome change all round.
The dev diary also covers some other important topics. Riot is scaling back its ambitions to release new Exalted skins (the controversial and potentially very expensive skins that are obtained through a gacha-style mechanic) every Act, saying that it will take more time to ensure that their quality matches the high expectations of players. As a result, the upcoming Exalted Mordekaiser skin has been delayed.
Clash is also returning to a monthly schedule after Riot announced that it would be running the competitive tournament experience much less this year. Next month’s Clash will revolve around ARURF, while April’s will be a standard Summoner’s Rift tournament.
For more, check out our lists of the best League of Legends skins. To see which champions are the most powerful in battle right now, head to our LoL tier list.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or join our community Discord to stay in the know.
