Hey everyone, I’m Jon aka Bellissimoh, the Product Lead for Personalization
and Events on League of Legends.
Let’s jump right into our plans for the new year.
Okay, we’ve been talking about improving League’s event passes for years
but it’s actually happening in 2022.
For real this time.
This summer, we’re launching a new event pass that should make your
progress and rewards easier to follow.
Event tokens are still at the heart of the system
but you'll earn from a new rewards track.
Play matches and complete missions to make progress
and collect emotes, loot, and essences all along the way.
Then, like today, convert your tokens for the rewards that you care about most
like exclusive chromas or the event’s Prestige skin.
Over the past year, we’ve experimented with some bigger adjustments
but something we’ve heard from you all is that the power to choose your rewards
with tokens is something you really like about League's event system.
So rather than reinvent the wheel, we focused on making event progress
clearer and more satisfying.
Now if you were watching closely, you may have noticed a new type of essence
in the reward track.
Along with the new event pass, we’re also going to be completely revamping
League’s Mythic content, which includes Hextech skins, Prestige skins, and Gemstones.
The new purple essence you saw is Mythic Essence, which will replace
Gemstones and Prestige Points as League’s main rare currency moving forward.
You’ll be able to get Mythic Essence in all of the same places you get
Gemstones and Prestige Points today.
And Mythic Essence never expires.
When Mythic Essence launches in a few months, Gemstones and Prestige Points will retire.
Until then, the Final Prestige Point Shop will remain open
so be sure to spend all your points because they won’t transfer over.
Gemstones, on the other hand, will be automatically converted into Mythic Essence
so feel free to hoard them to your heart’s content.
You’ll be able to use your Mythic Essence in the new, rotating Mythic Shop
which has an assortment of different goodies
but two main types of skins.
We’ve consistently heard that Hextech skins just really aren’t hitting
the mark for a skin line that’s supposed to be rare and valuable
so we’ve decided to introduce Seasonal Mythics.
Seasonal Mythics will have a new thematic each year.
For 2022 we’re developing Ashen Knights, where ancient warriors once fought
to rid the world of magic, but instead witnessed their kingdom fall to ash,
darkness, and ruin.
Another thing we’ve heard from you all is that it sucks if you missed your
chance to get a Prestige skin for your main.
Maybe you took a break from League, or just didn’t have the time to get
Prestige Arcade Caitlyn.
When the new Mythic Shop launches, you’ll finally have a second shot
to unlock past Prestige skins.
Each month, the Mythic Shop will feature a new set of unvaulted Prestiges.
You won’t find the newest Prestige skins here, but once they’ve been out
for at least a year, any Prestige can show up in the shop.
There’s also a special callout for 2018 and 2019 Prestige skins.
Back then, once an event ended, those skins were only available through a
lucky loot roll.
There was no end-of-year chance to unlock them with Prestige Points.
We’re going to bring back Prestige skins from 2018 and 2019.
But to recognize the investment of the OG owners, we’re creating an updated
version of each skin, which will be free for everyone who already owns it.
This updated version won’t be available in the shop.
It's just a way for us to acknowledge your early commitment.
We’ve heard that Prestige skins can sometimes feel like fancy gold chromas
that just aren't worth the grind.
So shortly after the new Mythic Shop opens, we’re going to be buffing the
time and effort we put into Prestige skins.
This includes a unique splash art and brand new VFX, and other ways
to accessorize your Prestige skin that’ll be released this year.
Finally, we’re also introducing a new feature called Loot Milestones,
which give you bonus rewards from opening set amounts of Loot.
There are two types of milestones on the way.
One is a repeatable track that you can complete over and over by opening
Masterwork Chests.
The other is a one-time track with an exclusive Prestige skin at the end of it
and is only available alongside smaller events without event passes.
Our goal with all of these changes is to make League’s Mythic Content better
for everyone, in terms of clarity, choice, and rewards.
There’s a lot more detail than what I’m mentioning here, so we’ll also be
releasing an explainer where you can dig into the nuts and bolts of everything.
There are no plans for a “League of Legends 2,” so we’re committed to
updating the game over time as part of a broader effort to modernize your
experience on your favorite champions.
Last year, we shipped a major update to Caitlyn, modernizing her base skin,
animations, and VFX, as well as most of her skins and splashes.
This year we’ll be focusing on Ahri.
One of our older, yet most popular champs in League, she doesn’t have
back animations and the animations she does have just feel extremely dated.
Not only for her base skin, but for all Epic Skins that use this same foundation.
You can expect to see a Caitlyn-level update for Ahri later this year.
That’s all I've got for today...
Wait.
You didn't seriously think I'd leave without showing you some of our skins
and thematics we're working on, did you?
In previous years, we’ve listed out champions that haven’t gotten a skin
in more than 1,000 days, called the 1,000 Day Club.
That list is pretty short today, but we want it to be gone for good.
Now I’m sure there’s somebody out there furiously writing up a post in
gangplankmains saying “Riot literally hates this champ!”,
but hold up.
Let's look at the list of champs that are going to see some love this year:
Gangplank, Fiddlesticks, Rek’Sai, Trundle, Rell, Orianna, and the Donger.
Of course, there will be more that aren’t listed here, but if you’re
starving for a skin, hang in there, we know that you’re counting the days,
and we are too.
Now in terms of thematics, we’re going to be revisiting a few popular ones
this year, like High Noon, Star Guardian, and Bees.
We’re also always looking for opportunities to bring back older
universes in new ways.
This time around, we found some inspiration looking at an
old standalone skin and reimagining it in a world that could exist today.
Set in a near-future, dying Earth, humanity faces resource shortages
and the deadly invasion of an ancient high-tech army.
In one final attempt to save themselves, the world bands together to create
their only hope for survival.
A superpower warrior armed with incredible technology:
The Battle Bunny.
Anima Squad has everything you’d expect to see in a futuristic thematic
like sleek, high-tech armor, powerful warriors, and cute animals.
You'll also see a familiar face return in a new state-of-the-art outfit.
Speaking of revamping old skins and thematics, we need your help choosing
which thematic we should modernize next, similar to what we did with High Noon.
So this week, you can vote for which thematic you want to see revamped
the most from Infernal, Gothic, or Arclight.
Infernal is all about fire as a power fantasy.
If we were to reignite this thematic, we’d want to deepen or expand what that
fantasy looks like.
Gothic is a thematic we haven't touched in a decade
before thematics were even really a thing.
So we’d really want to create a real universe for it, on par with today's skin lines.
And finally, there’s Arclight.
If Arclight wins, we’d want to magnify its core themes of divine light,
justice, and order to make it feel even grander.
You can vote for which thematic you’d most like to see revamped
in the League client this week.
Just like last year, even if the thematic you chose doesn’t win
it doesn’t mean that it’s never coming back.
Speaking of which, Monster Tamers, the third place in last year’s thematic vote
will be coming out later this year.
Finally, our first new thematic of the year will be a celebration
of the Lunar New Year.
Porcelain blends elegant, traditional imagery with the ferocity
and power of the tiger.
In addition to Porcelain, we’re also going to be revisiting
a well-loved favorite this year.
Alright fam—that’s it for today.
I can’t express enough how thankful I am that I get to be here and represent
the hard work of our teams.
The only reason we’re able to continue to invest into League year over year is
because of you and your support.
Thanks for playing.